


Morning Glory

by marizousbooty



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: 1852 London, Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Alternate Universe - Historical, Faerie AU, Multi, Slow Burn, for now :-), smidge of violence but I stuck the tag on just to be safe, victorian au
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-02-17
Updated: 2019-03-02
Packaged: 2019-03-20 06:05:54
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 55,309
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13711452
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/marizousbooty/pseuds/marizousbooty
Summary: Dangerous creatures lurk in the streets of London. Keith Kogane, a professional pickpocketer, picks the wrong pocket and lands himself in a dangerous kind of romance.





	1. Forget-Me-Not

**Author's Note:**

  * For [tinybeep](https://archiveofourown.org/users/tinybeep/gifts).



> For a Valentine's Day Secret Cupid Gift Exchange for the vld discord server. This fic is dedicated to Beep, the one and only who brought this server together and made us all one big awful family. Think of this as the gift that keeps on giving.  
> I would like to give a huge warm shout out to Deafy and Savannah for putting up with me rambling off about this since January 1st, when I first conceived the idea and helped me fill in plot holes and beta this whole ass long thing. Another shout out to Stella for running the secret cupid project and also putting up with me.  
> EDIT: I'm taking various British Lit courses that does cover history but excuse me if my information (ahem, money conversions) are wrong.

Keith awoke to the violent vibrations of the train that passed by every morning.The thought of the shaking of the train finally shattering the little window above his head, or crumble the foundations of the brick walls scared him. The scream of its mighty whistle the furious chugging of its engine shook the dirty window that looked out over the tracks. The little peak of sun at the grey horizon gave Keith barely enough light to see, but he couldn’t sleep in until it was fully up. He slipped out from under his thin blanket to tug on his grimy socks before the cold could leach whatever heat he managed to accumulate through the night. Shiro stirred in the bed next to him, shifting under the blanket and curling into himself since Keith’s warmth was no longer next to him.

Keith quietly went over to the water basin he filled the night before and splashed the freezing water on his face. The icy cold shocked whatever sleep was left out of his system. He went about getting ready for the day, started by boiling a pot of water for morning tea. While it warmed up, he dressed for work. Keith clattered around the room getting breakfast together, paying no mind to Shiro sleeping since he needed to get up, too.

“Morning, Shiro.” Keith gently shook Shiro’s back. “Tea’ll be ready soon.”

A tuft of dark hair under the thin maroon blanket let out a low grumble. Keith tore the it off him. Shiro let out a sound of retort and tried to reach for the retreating warmth.  

“Give i’h bah,“ he mumbled, feeling blindly for the missing blanket.

“None of that. Today’s your first day on the job so you have to get up now. No more sleeping in until ten and then wandering the market stalls the rest of the day.”

Keith tossed Shiro’s clothes at him to make him get up and do something. It wasn’t long until the two settled in their creaky chairs and even creakier table with their breakfast of half-stale bread, preserved cheese, and hot tea. The morning light had filled the room with a muted glow, diluted by the thick fog that blanketed the city. Judging by the squeak of old wood floors and the scrape of rotting doors they weren’t the only ones up in the shared house.

The two of them ate their measly breakfast as they watched the clouded sun rise over the tops of the buildings. Keith eyed Shiro over his mug of tea and watched how the diluted light softened his features. Shiro has been through. . . a lot. And it shows. The scar across the bridge of his nose, the patch of stressed white hair that hung over his brow, the bruised, deep bags under his eyes. But despite all the grime and exhaustion, Keith would still call him handsome. A strong jaw, sturdy nose, and jutting cheekbones make for a classical, almost statuesque face. If he could take a proper bath and buy a nice coat, he could easily marry rich for his looks alone. Keith would admit, he was a little jealous of how handsome Shiro was. But only a little.

Keith figured it was time to leave; he gave his mug and plate a quick wash and dry and headed toward the door for his coat and hat.

“What time do you think you’ll be back tonight?” Shiro asked.

“Late. Early. I don’t know, depends if I can get into the shipyards today,” Keith said with a huff. “Requests have been low lately, so I might be stuck idling outside. Why?”

“Let’s have some good meat tonight.” Shiro’s cool grey eyes sparkled. “You’ve been taking care of me for years, and since I have a job of my own now, I want to treat you to a good dinner. After work, I’ll go to the markets and find the best meat I can buy with some potatoes and we’ll eat like kings.”

Keith shoved his newsboy hat over his messy hair and smiled at Shiro. “I would like that.”

Once he was out of the house and down the worn-down street, he couldn’t help the little extra spring in his step. Shiro had been in and out of work for, well, years now. Since the accident. It wasn’t uncommon to get caught in machinery and lose a limb or two. Maybe even their lives. By some miracle from above, Shiro had survived with only the cost of his arm.

He was a porter now, his first day on the job. Keith doesn’t know how he got it, but he was proud.

The streets were starting the fill up with people, merchants setting up shop and harried workmen trying to beat the sun to their shift. The fog still clung to the edges of the streets and the top of the buildings, reluctant to be chased away completely by the morning sun.

Keith reached the shipyard just as the church bells tolled seven. The wrought iron gates were locked shut and a group of at least forty men were already pressed against the cold iron. At the toll of the bell, they started pressing harder against the iron gates as if to break them down. Keith wiggled his way through the throng, trying to get as close as possible to the gate so they would pick him to work.

A burly man came up to the other side of the gate, jingling some keys. The din of sound rose in volume as the men started clamoring forward to reach the gate, begging for work; pick him he’s strong, pick him he’s good at crafting. The thick stench of the them permeated the air with its cloying odor; it made a bit of bile rise in Keith’s throat, but he doubted he smelled any better.

Even with Shiro’s good luck in finally getting a job, it didn’t seem like any rubbed off on him. Half of the men were brought in to work, Keith left unnoticed and locked outside the shipyard with the rest of the protesting workers.

The shipyard is the ideal place for Keith to work, since it paid a decent three pounds, but a job like that was iffy to have since so many factors could prevent getting decent work, like weather, number of requests, and whether you looked like you could handle the labor. Unfortunately, Keith fell under the category of “Asian” and “boyish”, and was only picked if they were desperate. He does have a backup plan; finding places that need deliveries done and running those for five shillings per job. But if that doesn’t pan out, there’s always his last resort- pickpocketing.

Shiro didn’t know. He doesn’t need to know. Sometimes, if he’s really lucky and manages to swipe some upper-class fool’s whole wallet, he’ll treat them to a good dinner or buy Shiro something nice. He hates lying to his brother about where he got all the money for the meats and vegetables, but hates the idea of Shiro of being disappointed in him even more.

Keith did several rounds through the markets, asking around to see if anyone needed help for some pounds or food. It wasn’t until after eleven in the morning when Keith came across a baker who asked him to wash his hands then deliver three loaves of bread roughly a kilo away for four shillings and a loaf. Keith gladly accepted, and with a tip of his hat he followed the vague directions the baker given him.

The fog had mostly cleared, but the sun was still struggling to show its face high in the sky behind the blotches of grey clouds. The gentle hum of the streets rose to a dull roar as the day went on, more people traveled along the streets in their ratty browns, blacks, and greys. Keith had to admit that it was a dreary sight and smell. London was a mish mash of streets with no clear cut of poor or rich districts, just wherever people settled. Most of the folks out and about were clad in muted tones that indicated their status as the lower working class, but an occasional gilded carriage, a shiny top hat, or a richly colored, paisley-patterned shawl would flash through the somber crowd.

A loud shade of red had Keith turning his head to glance at whoever wore such a raunchy coat. The street he had turned down was nicer than the slums Keith and Shiro lived in, but was still far too dirty for any upper class to be hanging around. The man was clad in a bright red coat, a rich shade that reminded him of a fancy wax seal or the roses he saw on bonnets. He stood next to a grimy lamppost, a gold pocket watch grasped in his white-gloved hand. Everything from the intricately decorated top hat, down his cinched-waist coat, and shiny black shoes, indicated his status of excessive wealth.

Unlike all the other noble and richly dressed folk that were spotted in these streets, who were often quick to leave the slums for fear of being robbed, this man was idling. He tapped his foot in impatience, occasionally looking up and around the street then back to the watch in his hand.

If somebody hadn’t taken his wallet yet, Keith was sure someone would soon. And he hoped that someone would be him.

When Keith comes home tonight with a thick bag of gold, he’ll be the one treating _Shiro_ to the finest meats they can afford. A sly grin stretched across Keith’s face as he made a beeline for the red-coated man, newsboy hat drawn low over his eyes and bread tucked firmly under his arm.

The man’s back was to him, making it easy for Keith to roughly bump into the man’s shoulder, slip his hand into his coat where he should keep his wallet, and draw away quickly with a curt “sorry” on his lips.

He barely got away before a gloved hand clapped firmly onto Keith’s arm and yanked him back.

“And where in the bloody hell do you think you’re going with that?” A smooth voice asked.

Keith gulped and turned slowly to face the tackily-clad stranger, hat low and eyes glued to the shiny, leather shoes in front of him.

“You were an easy target, standing around a busy street like this in your fancy red coat. I reckoned you’d be loaded,” Keith said, a sharp edge to his voice. By the thickness of the wallet grasped in Keith’s hand, this man had some money to burn.

“I’m afraid you were quite wrong.” A gloved finger tilted Keith’s chin up forcefully to face the stranger.

Brilliant blue eyes, bluer than any hat décor he’d ever seen, gazed sharply into his. One look at the man’s face and Keith could only describe it as _sharp._ Sharp eyebrows, sharp nose, sharp chin, sharp cheekbones, a sharp look in his eye. Only the softness of the blue in his eyes and plushness of his lips offset his angular face. What shocked Keith was the rich caramel of his skin, an unusual shade for the depths of this city.

The man took a moment to study Keith’s face, then pursed his lips before he shoved Keith away.

“Take it, Lord knows you need it more than I do.” The man turned and started to briskly walk away.

A swell of anger rose deep in Keith’s chest, a tidal of red that perfectly matched this ugly noble’s tacky coat. He hated being poor, it was hard, but he hated being pitied more than anything.

He chucked the man’s wallet at the back of his head and knocked off his shiny top hat decorated in stupid babbles. The man lurched forward to catch his hat before it tumbled into the gutter. The bluest eyes Keith had ever seen gave him a glare sharper than his cheekbones.

“Excuse me? I’m letting you have my wallet with a fifty pounds in it. Isn’t this Christmas day for you? Take it, I’m being generous,” the man said coldly.

Keith bared his teeth. “I’ll take it if you give me that watch, too”

The man narrowed his eyes, hand drifted to the gold chain dangling from his coat. A grin split his face and he let out a bark of a laugh. “I was supposed to meet a friend here, of all places, and yet here I am bartering with a poor man over which item of mine he’s allowed to steal from me. I didn’t think this is how my day would go!” He unclipped the gold chain from his coat and dangled it in front of Keith’s face, swinging it hypnotically.

“I really like this watch, you know, it was a gift from a dear friend of mine. She would be sorely disappointed if I told her it was stolen. Why should I give such a treasure to _you_?” The blue eyes seemed to be hypnotizing Keith more than the swinging pendulum.

“What do you want me to say?” Keith snipped. “Tell you about my tragic backstory?”

The man snatched the watch from the air then turned to retrieve the wallet from the gutter. He held them out delicately for Keith to take them. Keith hesitated before he lurched out and snatched the offered items.

“You can borrow the watch. I am quite fond of it, so do be careful with it-“

“Whatever.” Keith ducked into the crowd and took off down the street, only turned back once to find those piercing blue eyes following him. It wasn’t until he turned the corner did he shake the feeling of those eyes piercing into him. It left a buzz that danced across his spine and over his shoulders, as though it were the man’s fingers brushing against his spine instead of his eyes.

He pulled his wool coat tighter around his body and tucked his treasures into his pockets. If what the man said about his wallet was true, he needed to be careful not to be pickpocketed himself.

The bread was safely delivered, and Keith was given what he was promised. It wasn’t until he tucked himself safely in an alley, away from the hustle and bustle of the street, did he let himself peek at his goods.

The wallet, true to the man’s words, was filled with exactly fifty pounds. Keith sucked in a breath and swore to hide it from Shiro so he wouldn’t get suspicious of where Keith got so much money while working at a shipyard. The pocket watch is something Keith could pawn off for even more. He pulled the heavy watch from his pocket, the cold metal kissed his fingertips. He examined the gold casing with a critical eye, ran his finger along the textured front. There were little leaves decorating the bottom and top of the watch, with a small flower in the middle with numerous pointy petals. He couldn’t figure out what kind of flower it was. He popped open the watch with a soft _click_ , the gentle ticking no longer muffled by the casing. There was a jumble of words on the inside of the lid that seemed completely senseless. A tiny blue stone, almost as blue as the man’s eyes, sat in the middle of the clock where all the hands met.

There was a pawnbroker a few streets down that Keith frequented whenever he snagged something good. He snapped the lid shut and crammed it into his coat pocket as he stood up to head over there. According to the watch, it was already past noon. Perhaps he’ll sell the watch then use the money for some dinner.

_You can borrow the watch._

Like hell is he going to “borrow” this solid gold watch. Why would he think Keith would give it back?

He reached the pawnbroker around one, according to the watch. The musty store had shelves brimming with goods and junk for sale, from the sparkling case of jewels and watches, to clothing and basic household necessities. The floral painted kerosene lamps that dangled from the ceiling swung from the wind that followed Keith into the shop. A fog of tobacco hung thick like the cloying mist outside.

A gruff voice from the back greeted him. Keith nearly tripped over a pile of ragged China dolls in lace and beads while trying to navigate through the shop.

“I have something to sell you.” He held up the pocket watch. “Solid gold and still works. Not a scratch on it.”

A man with thick mutton chops and thicker eyeglasses came out from behind a shelf of silverware and tea cups.

His eyes narrowed at the sight of Keith. “Better be good. Those buttons you sold me off that coat of yours got me into some trouble with a family from Switzerland, boy. Better be no funny business with this.” Keith guiltily fingered the sleeve to his wool coat, something he stole from the luggage of a foreigner then sold the gold buttons to get them dinner that night.

The pawnbroker snagged the pocket watch from Keith’s hand and squinted at it though his thick eyeglasses.

“The man I snagged this from was dressed like he thought he was married to the Queen, herself. A lot of shiny ornaments and flashy colors. Unless he-“

“This isn’t real gold.”

Keith’s eyes widened. “What?”

“It’s painted on. The gem in here is a real topaz and you’re right about it being shiny and new, but I’m not buying this for the price of real gold. How does ten pounds sound?”

“ _Ten_? For a real topaz and a working watch, I’m getting ten? I want at least thirty.”

“Fifteen and I am not going any higher.”

“No! Then you can’t have it!” Keith snatched the watch from the pawnbroker’s hand and stormed out of the shop, made sure to take extra care in slamming the door shut behind him. He stormed down the steps and into the crowd of people. His stomping feet and hissing breath calmed to a shallow huff after a couple blocks of rampaging. There was nothing for him to do now, except wander around aimlessly. He didn’t want to go back home until nightfall.

So that’s what he did, hung around the streets and dodged anyone that looked important or could potentially be Shiro. The pocket watch weighed heavily in Keith’s coat pocket, banging gently against his ribs with every step like it was the pendulum of a too-expensive grandfather clock. He checked it practically every few minutes, fascinated by being able to watch the time change before his very eyes and not by the nearby church bells. He waited until it read after seven before he trekked home, a weight made of fake gold and blue topaz made felt like a heavy hand on his shoulders.

He took a moment to collect himself before entering their home; took a deep breath to stop his head from spinning in red, golds, and blue that had flashed through his mind. He plastered a smile across his face, as fake as the gold pocket watch, as he shouldered the door open.

“Hello, Shiro! How was your first day of work?” Keith reached into his coat and pulled out a fraction of the pounds that was reaped from the flashy man earlier and set it on the table.

Shiro shrugged and flipped a page of the book he was reading. “It could have been worse. A couple people got upset with me for being too slow, my boss calmed them down by using the ‘it’s his first day, please excuse him’ excuse.”

“He’s not wrong. I’m sure it’ll pick up once you get more experience being a porter.” Keith plopped down at the table and removed his boots.“Did you get the meat?”

“Take a sniff and guess.”

Keith took a moment to sniff the air, smelling the rich pork that permeated their home.

“Good for us, I got bread today. Made fresh this morning.”

A grin split Shiro’s face, one that reached his eyes and made them crinkle in the corners. It warmed Keith’s heart to see him like this.

That night, they ate like kings. Shiro told Keith about his day and Keith told him, well, some of his. He said he wandered around and ran an errand for a baker, but didn’t tell him about the man in the red coat he stole a watch from. Keith could feel the watch staring at him from his coat hanging on the wall.

It was unlikely he would ever see that weird man again. London was a large city with a lot of people, packed together like sardines in little houses and clogged the streets in a riptide of bodies that was easy to be swept up in the dirt roads and muddy boots.

Of course, he saw that man three days later. This time, he wore a deep navy coat with decals of silver and lined with black velvet. It was colder today than three days ago, so he donned a heavy wool cape and traded the fine white gloves for ones of black seal skin. His hat was as foolish as before, with a white flower and baubles hanging from the band.

Keith still held the pocket watch in his pocket, never took it out at home, but when he was out he would always check the time or simply grasp it in his pocket. It was like a heavy weight that tied him down to the ground. He tipped his hat down to shield his eyes and tugged his coat closer to his body, the watch pressed firmly against his side. With his head down and eyes forward, he pushed through the sea of murky people and murkier faces, and passed that rich navy blue-clad man. He could feel those blue eyes piercing his exposed skin.

After the second encounter, there was a third, a fourth, a fifth, and a sixth. Each time, the man wore a different color that stood out among the miserable colors, like a bright spot in Keith’s eyes. There was always a tingle on his skin after he left. He didn’t know what that was, and he didn’t like it.

It wasn’t until the eighth encounter, a fortnight after the first, that he spoke to the man again.

He was caught picking at a man’s pocket, richly garbed and by the weight of the wallet in his hands, well endowed. Too bad he was caught sneaking away and had to make a break for it How he didn’t see the soft peach velvet coat, he would never know, but he ran head first into the man and knocked them both into the dirt.

An inhumane squawk was pulled from the man when he found himself face down in the dirt.

“Sir, I’m sorr- oh, it’s just you.” Keith pulled himself up and tucked the stolen wallet into his coat.

“Just me?” The man rolled over and glared daggers at Keith.

“Hey, kid! Grab the thief!” That gross nasally voice came from the rich pig’s escort.

Keith swore under his breath just as the man muttered under his breath, “Who’re you calling kid?”

“I have to go, urgent business. Pleasure seeing you again!” Keith waved and started to dart off into the street full of people but was grabbed by the arm and pulled back. A brief sense of déjà vu flashed through him.

“Did you get caught again? You’re terrible at this, aren’t you?” There was a wolfish grin on the man’s face.

“Let me go, they have the police with them.” Keith struggled to pull himself from the grossly clothed man.

“Then let’s get out of here.” The man shoved Keith into the crowd, hand still bruising his arm, and shoved him into an alley. The man turned and acted as a barricade between Keith and the street.

An officer came huffing up to the man, face red from exertion and mustache quivering.

“There’s a thief sulking about, the man that ran into you, did you see where he went?” The officer asked.

“A thief?!” The man gasped dramatically. “No wonder why he was so harsh when he knocked me down! Soiled my trousers, might I add. No, I didn’t see where he went. I was too upset over my trousers. Just look at them!” The man raised his leg and gestured towards the barely noticeable mud smeared on his leg.

“My apologies, sir. Thank you for your cooperation.” With a nod, the officer ran off.

Once out of site, the man sighed and slumped his shoulders before turning to Keith, a glare back on his face. “Are you going to use that stolen money to buy me new trousers?”

“I was going to buy myself a new coat. It’s getting cold.” Keith leaned back against the wall and sighed. He reached into his pocket and clutched the pocket watch like a lifeline.

“It doesn’t matter. Just don’t steal from me or run me over again like that. Aren’t you a professional at this?”

“I _am_ good,” Keith huffed. “You just happen to be around whenever I screw up.”

The man hummed under his breath. “You bartered me for the pocket watch, which by the way, is cheaply made so I didn’t expect you to get much from it. Perhaps I put a spell on it so it won’t fall into the wrong hands.”

A twitch in Keith’s eye was the only indication of his uncomfortableness with the situation. “For your information, I sold it for thirty pounds. I bought myself some nice meat for dinner that night.”

“Whatever you say,” the main said. “Pardon my rudeness for never introducing myself.” He pulled his expensive right glove off and offered Keith the smooth caramel hand. A gold band with dazzling blue gems sat on his pinky finger. “My name is Lance McClain, a gentleman of the Court.“

“Keith Kogane,” Keith said, eyeing the hand suspiciously before he reached out and shook the man’s-McClain’s- hand.

“Pleasure.” McClain fixed his hand back in his glove and shoved it under the warmth of his coat. “I would love to stay and chat, but I have some business to attend to. Fancy seeing you around here soon.” With a wave, he practically floated past Keith down the alley and turned sharply around the corner.

“Wait,” Why was he running after him? Keith turned the corner McClain disappeared down only to find a dead end, a door to his left creaked ominously. He didn’t want to heedlessly follow him into any unfamiliar buildings.

It was another week before Keith saw him again. November had arrived and brought a wave of cold throughout the city. It was unbearable getting up in the morning, but the shipyard needed every hand possible to finish its current commission before winter set in and made it impossible to work.

At the shipyard, Keith spotted the brightest shade of blue, brighter than any sky he had ever seen, peeking out under a heavy black cape. His top hat was as gaudy as always, today adorned with white flowers and silver ornaments. Only women dressed their bonnets up, why would a man want to do it? He waited outside the shipyard gate, next to the no fae sign and gazed almost longingly at the skeleton of a ship. Keith went over to the iron gate and slammed his gloved hands into the wrought iron. McClain didn’t even flinch at the noise.

“What are you doing here?” Keith asked. His eyes trailed down the brilliant blue coat to the walking stick in his expensively gloved hands, a glimmer of a blue stone close to the color of his eyes twinkled between his fingers at the hilt. He tapped out an odd rhythm that was unknown to Keith.

McClain’s eyes rove from the ship crawling with workmen to Keith, a sparkle in his blue eyes. “I love watching them build ships here. It’s the start of an adventure, you know? That frame will hold a beautiful home to hundreds who will travel across the sea and meet new people and try new things. It’s exciting, witnessing the start of a story.”

“It’s for the upper class to flaunt their money and power,” Keith said.

“But it will take them on a journey. You’re special, Mr. Kogane. You get to craft this vessel with your own hands. I’m glad you get to do some honest work, instead of stealing from innocent rich, like myself.”

Keith bared his teeth, “Cut the act. Like hell do I care about the upper class. I’m just doing it to put food on the table for my brother.”

McClain hummed in response. “That’s admirable of you to do something you’re so against for the sake of feeding yourself and family. Speaking of family, I want your opinion.” He rummaged through his cape for a second while muttering under his breath. He made a soft sound of triumph and pulled a black box wrapped in a silver ribbon from the depths of his heavy cape. “A dear friend of mine is beyond gloomy and I wish to cheer her up, even if just a little.” He gently tugged the ribbon off and opened the box to show Keith. Inside, nestled in a green bed of satin, laid a gold hair pin adorned with the shiniest gold leaves, smoothest pearls, and the most sparkly diamonds Keith had ever seen. He hesitantly reached out toward the pin, before the lid was snapped shut.

“You’ve already stolen a gift to me, you’re not stealing a pin to my friend. She’s awfully depressed, and I’m hoping a fine supper, a trip to the opera, and this pin would cheer her up.” McClain rewrapped the silver ribbing and tucked it back into his cape.

“I’m awfully depressed with all the work I have to do. Will you treat me to a fine supper, a trip to the opera, and a darling hair pin to cheer me up?” A grin quirked on Keith’s lips.

McClain tapped on his lower lip and looked up into the gloomy sky in mock thought. “You’re hair is long enough, I bet you could pull off a gorgeous spinel and gold pin.” His eyes lingered on Keith’s dirty work glove-clad hand gripping the iron gate. “Or maybe a set of fine silk gloves, yours seem to be falling apart at the seam.”

“Silk would get ruined with the work I do. I would rather take the dinner,” Keith snorted.

“Suit yourself.” McClain shrugged and tipped his hat with the hilt of his walking stick. “I must be going. You better run off too, before your boss finds you chatting with a pretty boy like me.”

“Pretty boy? I don’t see one anywhere.” Keith feigned looking around the crowd behind McClain.

“Oh ha ha. Very funny. Now I really must be off. Farewell! I’ll see you on a brighter day.” With that, he turned with a click of his heel and disappeared into the crowd.

Keith waved at his retreating back and marched back to his station.

A large hand slapped him in the back out of nowhere. “I see yer talking to that pretty rich kid over there. Is he buying you gifts?”

“He just offered me dinner and an opera. I have nothing to wear so I declined his offer.” Keith shrugged off the large hand.

A chorus of “ _ooooh_ ”s rang out in their little corner of the shipyard.

“Our sweet baby Keith is getting a _man!_ A loaded one, at that!” One of the men chuckled.

“Stop that,” Keith snapped. “He’s mad I snagged his wallet and favorite watch from him. He’s following me around trying to get it back.”

“Persistent, isn’t he?” Another said. “Can’t he just buy another one? He’s rich, he could easily replace it.”

Keith shrugged. “He said there’s sentiment behind the one I snagged.”

“My sister had a man like that following her around for a while. Turns out he was some fae trying to woo her into marriage,” the first man said with a shudder. “Best be careful, they’re a nasty lot who think they rule everything.”

“That man wouldn’t hurt a fly. I doubt he’d be a _fae.”_ Keith waved his hand with a laugh. “He’s a little strange but that could be all the gold getting to his head.”

The conversation was interrupted by one of the bosses coming up to see what the hold up was. They quickly turned back to their work.

It was too late. The idea was already planted into his head and Keith couldn’t shake that nervous tick. What if McClain was one of them? He had nothing to prove it. If he called him out on his strange manner than if he ended up being wrong, that would be plain rude and offensive. It was fine. There was no reason for Keith to worry over something so silly.

It completely slipped his mind once he got home. Shiro greeted him again, tired looking but a smile plastered on his face.

“I made a friend at work today,” Shiro said over supper.

Keith quirked an eyebrow. “Tell me about them.”

“He’s a little weird and maybe even a little eccentric,” Shiro said. “ He’s polite though, but kind of forgetful and clumsy. He’s been wandering around Abbott lately. I decided to try and talk to him because I’ve been seeing him around the area with a lost look on his face. He’s new in town so tomorrow I’m going to give him a tour during my break.”

“That’s wonderful! What’s his name?”

“I didn’t get a name yet, we were too busy talking about, well, everything else and kind of skipped introductions. I’ll get it tomorrow and report to you back in the evening, sir.” Shiro mocked a salute at Keith. He stifled a laugh in his potatoes.

“Be careful, winter is coming soon and we need to save up for new capes and gloves. Don’t go missing work over this new fellow.” Keith pointed a fork accusingly at him.

“I promise.” Shiro waved away his fork. “I do really need a new pair of shoes. Mine are falling apart at the soles and I don’t think they’ll last through the winter.”

Later that night, after they turned off the lights and curled up in their beds, Keith could feel the lumps of money in his pillowcase; a reminder of where it was going to go toward. Christmas was over a month away and Keith doesn’t think he has nearly enough saved up for those new shoes. He wanted to get Shiro the nicest shoes money can get, in hopes they last him a long time. He deserved it.

It was stunningly bright and sunny the next day, which was odd for an early November afternoon. Keith wandered to a nearby bakery on his break to pick up some rolls and tea. On his way back, he passed by the shoe shop window with the shiny black boots he had been eyeing for Shiro for months now. This morning he counted out everything he had saved and, judging by the price, he was almost there. A grin stretched across his face at the thought of Shiro receiving his gift Christmas morning.  He saw a familiar reflection before he felt a tap on his shoulder.

“Good afternoon, Mr. Kogane,” McClain said cheerfully. “You seem to be in good spirits.”

“Oh, I am. What brings you here?” Keith’s eyes lingered on the shiny boots before he turned and met McClain’s brilliant blue ones. Today he donned the black cape, since the chill wasn’t quite chased away with the sun hanging high in the sky, and a deep indigo coat. The gold buttons winked at Keith in the sunlight.

“Doing some shopping.” McClain gestured to the bag in his hand. “It looks to me you’re doing the same.”

“Window shopping, really.” Keith couldn’t help but stare longingly at the shoes on display.

“If you really want those I would be more than happy to get them for you.”  It took a second to realize what McClain was offering. He reached over and tugged his arm back before McClain could enter the shop.

“Don’t you _dare,_ Mr. McClain! I’m planning on buying them for my brother as a gift.” Keith grit his teeth. “Don’t take this away from me.”

McClain blinked owlishly at him then huffed a laugh. “Oh alright. I won’t ruin anything. Speaking of gifts.” He dug through one of this bags and with a flourish he pulled out-

“Gloves?” Keith looked at them confused.

“Ta-da! Yes, some nice leather gloves. I like this particular craftsman’s work since they last a long time and are made very sturdy. They’re lined to keep you warm.” McClain shoved the fine gloves closer to Keith’s face. “I noticed yours were falling apart yesterday. Consider this a gift.”

Keith didn’t reach out for the gloves. He stared at them wide-eyed and in awe. “Why?”

“I just told you. Take them, I bought them for you.” McClain pushed the gloves closer to Keith’s face

“What if I don’t take them?” Keith challenged.

“I will pin you to the ground, rip those nasty gloves off your hands, and force these on you instead.”

With an indignant huff, Keith shyly reached out and took the offered gloves. “Thank you,” he said softly.

McClain furrowed his brows for a moment before a smile brighter than the sun in the sky graced his features. “You’re very welcome.”

Keith removed the old gloves from his hands, worn and falling apart at the seams of his wrist. On his bare skin the new gloves felt so soft. He rubbed at the fabric with his fingers. “I’m almost afraid to wear them they’re so nice.”

“They’re made to last. You could get into a bar fight in those and they wouldn’t even stretch or tear.”

“I kind of want to test that out.”

“Don’t you _dare_!” McClain made an indignant gasp.

Keith couldn’t help but laugh at the look on McClain’s face, a full, deep belly laugh that he hasn’t felt in a while.

“Thank you, Mr. McClain. I’m truly grateful for your gift.” It felt like his body was filled with sunshine.

McClain smiled softly at him, but the moment was broken when his eyes snapped to something behind Keith, a smile morphed into a frown. “As much as I’d like to stay and chat, I really must be going. I’m a busy man, after all.” He tipped his hat and bid farewell. “Let me treat you to a dinner and opera one night.”

Keith waved goodbye and watch him slip away, as he always did. A breeze, cool and smelled faintly of sea salt, brushed past Keith. He went to stuff his old gloves into his pockets, but a pop of color caught the corner of his eye. In the crevice of the dirty street at the base of the shoe shop foundation, where McClain had stood moments ago, sprouted the smallest blue flowers with little yellow centers. A shock of cold doused the sunshine that had filled him to the brim. He felt the ice trickle in his veins and breath freeze in his throat.

It must be a coincidence. The ground is dirt, and it must have been by a series of mishaps that lead to a little sprout of dainty blue flowers to grow from the ground under the shoe shop window. Keith knelt down and hesitantly brushed a finger over the silky petals. They were cold. He picked one of the flowers and wrapped it in his handkerchief to tuck away safely in his pocket.

That evening he showed Shiro the flower he found.

“I think that’s a forget-me-not. Where did you find this?” Shiro picked up the flower and examined it closely. The petals were wilted and browning.

“Side of the road. I didn’t notice any more along the street. It’s the first time I’ve ever seen a flower like this,” Keith said.  
Shiro froze. “That’s. . . a bad omen Keith. Was someone standing there before you noticed the flowers?”

McClain was. They grew right next to where he stood. He hadn’t told Shiro about McClain yet. Something stopped him from saying anything about his new friend. Not a friend, aquanitence maybe? He even put back on his old gloves and hid the new ones in his coat with the pocket watch before he came in to ensure Shiro didn’t find out about anything. He was right, though, That’s a bad sign.

Keith didn’t like where this was going.

“No. No one stood there.” His throat burned with the lie.

Shiro gave him a level stare, one that read he didn’t quite believe him. He sighed and stood up and went over to their shared bed. On the little side table sat a collection of books Shiro kept. He ran his finger along the spines of the worn volumes and pulled out the one he was looking for.

“What’s that?” Keith asked.

“A flower encyclopedia. I want to make sure I’m right.” Shiro handed the flower to Keith. “Get a cup of water for it and put it by the window so it could get some light.”

Keith nodded and did as he was told. Shiro plopped down at the table and started flipping through the pages, occasionally looked up to stare at the dainty flower. Keith sat back down at the table.

After a little while of searching, Shiro made a soft “ _Aha_!” sound and smoothed the pages down. Keith looked up from his tea and eyed the book.

“It’s called a forget-me-not. It’s a pretty popular flower for lovers, since it’s a symbol of longing and loyalty,” Shiro read slowly. “ Now that I’m looking at it again, I’ve seen it on women’s bonnets and pins a lot. They like the sentiment value for lovers it holds. If a beloved was a soldier and went away to serve, the lover would bestow a gift of a locket engraved with a forget-me-not and a lock of their hair in it to serve as a reminder. Romantic, isn’t it?”

Keith hummed in response and let his gaze drift to the window sill where the forget-me-not sat. It seemed to glow in the street lights from below.

“Keith?” Shiro grabbed his attention. He looked over and met Shiro’s concerned gaze. His left hand covered Keith’s and gripped it firmly. “Be careful. There have been some incidents in the city lately with faeries and this is an obvious sign of one. There might be one hanging around the shipyard. Go down to the apothecary and see if you can get some St. John’s wort.” With one more squeeze, Shiro let go of his hand.

First it was the man at the shipyard trying to spook Keith and now Shiro. He hated how the worry they planted began to gnaw at him like an unwanted parasite.

By the next morning, the flower was somehow still alive in its little cup by the dirty window. It’s blue petals seemed to glow in the morning sun. Keith had his morning tea next to it.

But it didn’t last. The little forget-me-not was dead in three days. He had watched it wither away.

In those three days, he didn’t see hide nor hair of McClain.

He seemed to appear out of thin air on a bleak midweek afternoon, without a sound and blew a breath of air down the nape of Keith’s neck. He spun around and clamped his hand over the cold spot.

“What was that for?” He hissed.

“I wanted to get your attention without having to say anything,” McClain said with a laugh.

“Well you have it, what do you want?” His neck was still chilled.

“I have a gift for you.”

Keith arched his brow. “I don’t need anything from you.”

“You need these.” McClain held out a deep burgundy velvet pouch. Keith peeked inside the bag to see shiny black buttons winking at him.

“I stole this coat from a noble man’s luggage and sold the gold buttons for food, what makes you think I won’t sell them again?”

“What if I bought you food, too?” The glimmer in his eyes looked like the sun sparkling off the surface of a vast lake in the summer.

“Even if I took the buttons and the food, I don’t have anything to sew them on with. I just have a pretty bag of buttons.”

“I can sew them on?”

Keith did a double take at him. “ _You_ can sew? Isn’t that a woman’s hobby?”

McClain scoffed and snatched the bag of buttons back. “Give me your coat and I’ll show you.”

They ended up on a bench in a nearby park. McClain had protruded a needle and thread from the depths of his cloak and started to sew on the buttons. Keith sat shivering on the bench next to him, reduced to his trousers and workshirt. He wrapped his arms around his middle and jiggled his legs to keep some semblance of warmth.

“Would you like to borrow my cape?” McClain broke the silence first.

Keith looked at him questioningly.

“You’re freezing. I have at least three layers over my shirt, I could spare one for you.”

Before Keith could respond, McClain stood up and with a flourish, removed his heavy cape and indicated Keith to stand up. Too cold to bother protesting, he stood and turned so McClain could drape the cape across his shoulders. The weight was heavy and unfamiliar, but the warmest thing Keith has ever worn. They plopped back down on the bench and McClain went back to work in sewing on the black buttons. Keith couldn’t help but snuggle a little deeper into the warm cape.

It wasn’t an uncomfortable silence. They didn’t try to force conversation and instead, simply enjoyed each other’s presence. Keith felt so relaxed in the wool cape. He took a deep breath and smelt the cool, crisp smell that reminded him of rain in a forest, but mixed with the worn wool fibers. He reached toward his torso to check how much time had passed since they sat on the bench, only to remember the watch was still in his coat pocket. The coat McClain still held in his hands sewing on shiny black buttons.

“And done!” McClain shook out the coat to inspect the buttons.

“Thank you, Mr. McClain. I appreciate it.” Keith reluctantly shrugged off the warm cape and traded that for his coat. It felt nice being able to button it  up again.

“You’re very welcome, Mr. Kogane.” McClain bowed deeply. How ridiculous a sight it must be, a gentleman of the Court bowing for a lower class man. “I have some business to attend to now. It was a pleasure spending time with you!” With a dramatic flourish of his hat and a twirl of his cape, he was off.

McClain kept his promise. He brought Keith the softest, warmest bread Keith had ever eaten, a basket of the juiciest, golden apples, and the freshest potatoes, onions, and carrots. He would visit Keith as he was getting off work and passed him baskets and bags of food and would once again disappear into the street of people with a wave and a dazzling smile that reminded Keith of pearls on a necklace.

It was on his way home from work, tired and filthy but with a spring in his step and a silver box of black tea leaves in his hands, there was pandemonium down the street. Keith meandered over to the front of a bakery where a crowd of people was gathered in front of. An incident, Keith figured. He passed by and tried to cran his neck to take a look over their heads to see what happened.

“Poor bloke.” He heard the whispers.

“Didn’t follow the Nine Rules like a fool, now look at him.”

“Heard he accepted gifts from it and ended up paying the price.”

“An awful mess.”

“It even knew his whole name! What a bloody idiot.”

A fae incident, it seemed. The crowd parted, just enough for Keith to catch a glimpse. Hot bile burned his throat.

A body of a man laid in the road, dirty and rigid. His mouth was agape in a frozen, bloody scream, his eyes empty sockets filled with little violet and yellow flowers. Blood was caked into the dirt and dried to a rusty brown. The police were attempting to shoo the crowd away while someone knelt by the body to examine him. A woman cried by the shop door.

It all happened in a moment, but it felt like too much. Keith picked up the pace and rushed home.

Shiro was waiting for him at their table, hand tapping a rhythm to his thigh. His face was pale. He jerked up when Keith came through the door.

“What’s wrong?” Shiro said, almost breathless.

“I was going to ask the same to you.” Keith hung up his coat and hat then made his way over to the Shiro. A fire was already lit and warmed the place with a soft glow.

Shiro looked down at his little leather journal sat open in his lap, a piece of charcoal nestled in the spine. Shaky drawings of smudged flowers covered the pages. Pansies, Keith realized.

“I saw a man get killed today. By a faerie,” Shiro whispered. Keith sucked in a breath and rubbed his hand in smoothing circles on Shiro’s back. “He was with a woman. They were arguing in front of the bakery and-and she shifted. Transformed in the middle of the street. Her hair was like. . . like it had a mind of its own how it moved in the air. I hated how beautiful she looked. She. . .” Shiro gulped. “She ripped his tongue and eyes out then just-just dissolved. Into petals the same shade as her hair. The man was writhing on the ground, choking on his own blood, and screaming. It was awful. I. . .” He stopped and shook his head.

Keith noticed the dried blood caked on his hand and sleeve, the unshed tears in his eyes. He collapsed down to his knees and wrapped his arms around Shiro’s middle, in hoped his own shuddering arms would help him calm down, even a little. He felt Shiro tentatively place his hand on top of Keith’s head and gently ran his fingers through his black locks.

“I’m sorry you had to see that. It’s okay. You’re okay. It’s over.” Keith cooed softly.

“Don’t be sorry. Incidents like this happen far too often to avoid.”

They sat like that for a moment, with Shiro running his hand through Keith’s hair and Keith on his knees and arms locked around Shiro’s middle.

“Keith.” Shiro gently tipped Keith’s head back so he could see his face. “Do you remember the Nine Rules?”

Keith frowned. “Of course I do.”

“Tell me.”

“Shiro, I’m not seven I know-”

“Please.” Shiro was still too pale, hands still unsteady, and eyes too glassy for Keith’s liking.

“One.” Keith started slowly. “Look a fae directly in the eye and hold their gaze to gain control. Two.” Keith took a deep breath. “Cross streams and rivers to escape. Three, don’t talk about the newborn. Four, don’t accept anything from them.” Keith mentally winced. “Five, don’t eat faerie food or drink faerie wine. Six, Don’t step into a faerie circle. Seven, don’t thank them. Eight, be polite. Nine, don’t tell them your name.” His throat burned.

Shiro nodded. “Thank you. I love you, Keith, and I want you to be safe.”

“Shiro, I-” Keith didn’t know how to continue. He hated that nagging feeling in the back of his mind. “What would you do if I got caught up in a faerie? If I was indebted to one?”

Shiro sucked in a breath. “I would kill them.”

Keith froze, then barked out a laugh. “You don’t have to go that far.”

“I’m serious, I’ll kill them.” A smile on Shiro’s face contradicted his words.

Neither of them could sleep that night. The fire kept popping in and out, threatening to die at any second. The cold seeped through the cracks in the walls and the floorboards, slipping past the dying embers and danced across their skin like a threat, that once the fire was out it will burrow deep in their bones. It was more than the chill that kept Keith from sleeping properly. Anxiety bubbled in his throat and he couldn’t place an exact reason as to why.

He was scared. An incident like that happened in front of Shiro. He’s heard it through gossip, seen crime scenes in passing, even a body once or twice. But never before has he known anyone so directly involved in a fae attack.

The Nine Rules were established for a reason, and Keith realized that he’s been breaking them. Regardless, McClain wasn’t a fae. It wouldn’t matter. But there was still a _chance._ And that’s a chance he wasn’t willing to take.

An ornate carriage came by the shipyard the following day. Keith was on break, sitting on the side of the road and chowing down on an apple. He popped open and shut the pocket watch, the repetitive clicking kept him grounded as he stared off into space. The carriage came to a halt in front of where Keith sat, jerking him from his stupor. The coachman stepped down from his seat and opened the door with a bow. Unsurprisingly, it was McClain who stepped out in a deep emerald green coat. He tipped his hat in greeting and stood in front of Keith with a dazzling smile on his face.

“Good afternoon, Mr. Kogane. On a break?” He asked. His voice was light and airy.

“I am. What brings you here with your. . . entourage?” Keith gestured toward the carriage.

“We’re leaving on a trip. It’s a good thing I saw you before I left because I have something to give you.”

Keith’s eyes widened. “No! Oh no, it’s alright you don’t need to get me anything. The gloves, the buttons, the food. It was all more than enough I-”

“Nonsense! I insist!” He stepped back in the carriage to rummage around for whatever he was looking for. Keith spotted the hem of a wide, black skirt and the tip of a man’s shiny black shoes in the carriage with him. He heard McClain say something to his companions before he stepped out, shutting the door behind him. The curtains twitched, then drew open completely. The hem of the dress must belong to the woman in a black veil. She must be in mourning. The other was a bulky looking man, skin darker than McClain’s own rich color, with a silky top hat much like McClain’s but with much less decoration. The two watched(or he assumed the woman did, he couldn’t see her face) McClain and his interaction.

With a flourish, McClain presented a simple white linen tie to Keith. “A gift, for the gentleman.”

“You said you’re the gentleman of the Court, why would you call me that?” Keith eyed the tie warily, his fingers tugging on his own ratty one.

“You could be a gentleman too. It just takes a little chivalry.” Keith really hated that damn twinkle in his eyes.

“Well, I don’t want to be a gentleman. Please, why are you doing this? Do you pity me?” Heat rose in Keith’s core, anger reared its ugly head and made him spit his words out with malice. He didn’t want to admit it, but he was scared. There was too much going on in the city, too much to be afraid of. Taking gifts, as nice as they are, was dangerous.

McClain looked taken aback. “I simply wished to gift you with new things.”

“Do you pity me?” The heat rose to his cheeks, the fire to his eyes and burned his tongue. The memory of Shiro from the previous night flashed across his mind’s eye, shaking and pale and caked in dried blood that wasn’t his own.

“No! It makes me sad to see you in such a sad tie, in sad gloves, and a sad coat. I wish to see you in beautiful clothes and surrounded by beautiful things. You’re a wonderful man, Mr. Kogane, and I only hope for the best for you. I mean no harm, nor am I trying to humiliate you.”

“Maybe I don’t need your gifts, Mr. McClain,” he spat out the words. They tasted like acid. “You’re flaunting your money at me, taunting me with what I can’t have. Giving me a taste of luxury then pull back the plate before I can dig in. It’s cruel. It’s kind of you but there are other things you can do for me besides buying me a new necktie. I need no more, thank you. Leave me alone.”

McClain’s eyes flashed and for a second, they reminded Keith of that painting in the pawnbrokers shop of a ship being wrecked in a chaotic, stormy sea. He blew out a puff of air from his nose and Keith swore he felt ice crawl across his heated skin.

Instead of responding to Keith, yelling or scolding him, he shoved the necktie into Keith’s chest and spun sharply on his heel with a sharp _click_ and went straight into the carriage. There was no usual tip of his hat and smooth farewell for Keith, not even a look back. He slammed the carriage door shut. The curtains from his companions jerked shut. Keith stood frozen to the ground as the carriage rode off down the road. The pristine white necktie now laid at Keith’s feet in the mud.

He knew it was wrong to lash out like that, but fear still pumped through his mind like that insistent ticking of the pocket watch he took from McClain. The words of the man from the shipyard and Shiro were a constant buzzing the back of his mind he couldn’t get rid of.

If, _if_ , by some horrible twist of fate that Shiro’s warning was right, that the cold in Keith’s gut that told him that something was off, then he’s already in deep trouble. He didn’t want to think about that.

He already regretted how rude he was to McClain and planned on apologizing as soon as he came back. There was no _proof_ that McClain was one of them, what reason beside his own nervousness does he have to treat McClain as he just did? It was an awful trait of his, to act on his emotions before thinking. He picked the now filthy necktie from the ground, dusted off as much dirt as he could, and folded it gently before he placed it in the pocket with the pocket watch. An apology was in order.

McClain wasn’t seen for a while, due to his trip or his anger, Keith didn’t know. If he was honest, he actually missed McClain a little bit. What he said ate away at his psyche, and he swore to apologize next time they meet. McClain had a right to be upset, but even Keith knew when he crossed a line. If he got some form of apology or redemption back from McClain it would be alright. He hoped, at least.

Those thoughts went around and round his head day and night. He formed a formal apology but made sure to add a “I’m thankful, just don’t do that anymore”.

It was almost a full fortnight after their little spat when Keith got to forget about the nagging voice in his head when he met Shiro’s new friend.

“This is Matthew Holt,” Shiro cheerily introduced the two after church Sunday afternoon. Keith and Holt shook hands.

“A pleasure to meet you finally, Mr. Holt. Shiro talks about you a lot, but I believed you were an imaginary friend since he never let us meet. Until now, that is,” Keith said.

“Oh, the pleasure is all mine!” Holt gave him a cheeky grin. “Shiro always _rambles_ about you whenever we meet. Keith did this, Keith said that, on and on all day every day.”

Keith quirked an eyebrow at the use of Shiro’s nickname. He was the only one who ever used it. Holt must be a special case.

Mr. Holt was a generally average looking man, with unruly sandy colored hair and hazelnut eyes that gave Keith the impression he was reading Keith like a good book. Average built, average height, and donned a mud brown vest as his Sunday best. A noticeable scar, still pink and raw, graced his left cheek.

The three of them decided to take a stroll through a nearby park. It was chilly out but that didn’t deter families from visiting either on the cloudy Sunday afternoon, either. Troupes of women passed by with their cinched waists and cake-like skirts decorated in frills and lace. Children ranging in all ages frolicked through the browning grass and trees, paying no mind to the chill in the air and their clouded breaths.

Shiro and Holt chatted idly, while Keith stuck to walking behind him. He was able to watch them talk from here, and noticed the gentle smile on Shiro’s face. Not only had Holt managed to pull Shiro’s nickname from him, but also that sweet smile that had always been directed at Keith. A pang of jealousy spiked through him. He couldn’t help it, this was new and untreated  territory for him.

Keith didn’t like that he wasn’t the only special one in Shiro’s eyes anymore, but on the other hand, he knew that Shiro would have to move on eventually. Keith can’t be the only person in Shiro’s life whom he loves.

There was a commotion up ahead, a circle of police officers in their sparkling buttons and navy blue uniforms kept a wide berth and pushed people away from the area.

“ _A fairy circle_ ,” a woman in front of the trio whispered.

Those were dangerous. The fae would leave around rings of mushrooms and flowers to draw people in and trap them in their realm. No one could touch the ring, only ward people away from it until nature took its course and grow over the ring.

Behind the officers, a neat circle of dusty grey and pearly white mushrooms next to a tall tree. They were ushered away before they could get a closer look. Keith and Shiro where already several paces ahead before they noticed that Holt wasn’t with them. When Keith realized he turned to see where he’d gone. He seemed entranced, frozen in place, and stared at the ring, a glazed look over his eyes.

Keith called out to him. “Mr. Holt?”

Matt blinked, his trance seemingly broken, turning back to Keith and Shiro.

.“Hm? Sorry I must have spaced out. Let’s get going. It’s after twelve and I’m _starving.”_ Holt jogged back to where Shiro and Keith waited for him.

“There’s been too many incidents lately,” Shiro noted. “Too many sightings, rings, and even attacks. There must be something wrong in the Seelie Court and they’re taking it out on us.”

Holt nodded. “It’s hard to say since my memories a little foggy but this,” He indicated to the pink scar on his face, “Had something to do with it.”

Keith looked at Holt quizzically.

“He got attacked one night and escaped somehow with the scar on his face. The night’s foggy and so is the rest of his past so he’s a little muddled as to how he got to London and finer details in his life. A slight case of amnesia due to the trauma maybe, but he’s getting better.”

Holt lit up at Shiro’s statement. “I am! Just brief flashes and recollections, I can’t give you anything solid yet but at the rate I’m going, it’s only a matter of time.”

Keith found the smile on his face unnerving.  

The long toll of church bells greeted Keith at an unusual time on the following Wednesday morning.It was a funeral procession.

It was already a gloomy day, the clouds a slate grey and rumbling in the distance with rain that couldn’t decide if it wanted to fall or not. The procession was coming up the road toward Keith, lead by a group of men up front to clear the way, a hearse adorned in white flowers, and followed by the loved ones on foot. The women, men, and children alike clad head to toe in somber black. Keith firmly grasped the button of his shirt, tilted his head toward the ground, and walked through the sea of black.

A hand, all too familiar, grasped his arm from the tide of mourners. Keith looked up, about to knock out whoever grabbed him, only to see a familiar face.

“Mr. Kogane,” McClain said.

“I- Mr. McClain.” Keith was breathless.

McClain jerked his head to indicate Keith to walk with him. He turned around and started to walk slowly with the procession, McClain right next to him. Keith couldn’t help but eye at McClain’s own somber attire from head to toe. He traded out his brightly ornamented top hat, uniquely colored coat and vest, and flashy tie for the plainest black. His face, like the rest of his outfit, was drawn and dark. A sadness clung to his brow and a pallor on his face that almost resembled a corpse. The deep shadows under his dreary eyes was what concerned Keith the most.

“It’s been a while,” McClain started. “I wanted to apologize for how we left off last time we saw each other. I shouldn’t have assumed anything and stopped when you said so. I’m sorry.”

“Please, I want to apologize, too.” Keith took a deep breath. This was it. “I was harsh on you, and you didn’t deserve that treatment. For that, I’m sorry. But, I do not wish to be treated like someone who needs to be taken care of. I’m not a child you must buy things for. I’m a prideful man and refuse to take free handouts as such. I’ve lived like this my whole life, and though I am grateful for your kindness, I would rather you spend your money elsewhere.”

A small smile etched across McClain’s face. “Apology accepted.”

They walked slowly in the March, the funeral bells ringing ominously in the distance. Keith eyed McClain through the fridge of his bangs, noting the swoop of his long nose and the length of his eyelashes, the splash of sun kissed freckles on his cheeks and the furrow in his brow.

“Is everything alright?” Keith asked softly.

McClain gave Keith a leveled look then smiled softly. “We’re in a funeral procession for a dear friend of mine. I’m as all right as I could be.”

“I’m sorry. It must be hard.”

“It’s quite alright. I’m a little snappy today so don’t take anything harsh I say to heart.”

“Are you _physically_ feeling alright?”

The small smile cracked into a wider grin. “A mere headache that was with me this morning. Nothing terrible. I plan on resting after this.” A particularly loud toll of the bell from a church they passed made McClain physically recoil. “In fact, I’m going to take a nap so long you’ll think I’m comatose.”

Keith stifled a laugh, aware how rude it would be to chuckle in the middle of a funeral procession.

“You’re still gripping your button for dear life, Mr. Kogane. Let go, you’re walking with the crowd.” McClain gently pried Keith’s hand away from his shirt button, which Keith didn’t realize he was still gripping like a lifeline. His chilled fingers seemed to unfreeze and uncurl when McClain pulled his hand away. The leather of his glove was soft and warm on Keith’s hand. He didn’t want to let go of the warmth that shielding his fingers from the cold. And he didn’t.

His hand stayed clasped around Keith’s as they continued the procession. He didn’t know if it was intentional or not, but a part of him didn’t want to tell him to release his hand. It was a bit foolish, but that part spoke out louder than a more reasonable part of him. They walked in somber silence. He wanted to keep talking with McClain but didn’t know what to say.

Up in the front of the procession, right behind the hearse, walked a woman in mourning wear, a heavy, black veil shielding her face from the onlookers. She was petite and clasped the arm of a taller man with sandy colored hair and little spectacles perched atop his nose.

“That’s my dear friend Pidge and her dad. The funeral is for her brother, also a friend of mine.” McClain said softly.

“I’m sorry. If you don’t mind me asking, how did. . .” Keith vaguely gestured toward the hearse.

McClain shook his head. “There’s no body. He’s been missing for almost two years now. This is all for show, and for the peace of the family.” He sighed heavily. “It’s better to have loved and lost, than never to have loved at all.”

Keith blinked at him in confusion, decided to shake off McClain’s comment and bowed his head. His response was practically a whisper. “Do you think it was the fae who did it?”

“Hm. Most likely.”

They were lulled back into the somber silence. Keith didn’t want to let go of his warm hand. A sick part of him didn’t want this depressing affair to end so he could keep his hand in McClain’s.

“Mr. McClain.” A woman’s voice cut between them. McClain jerked his hand from Keith’s in alarm. He mourned the lost of the soft leather.

“Miss Altea, how may I help you?” McClain tipped his hat at a lady who came up to walk on the other side of McClain. He offered his arm to her and she took it in her dainty, black lace gloves hand.

“Who is this man you’re speaking to? He wasn’t at the ceremony,” she said. She leaned forward a little bit to look at Keith.

He was struck with how beautiful she was. She was garbed in the somber mourning black, a lace veil that matched the lace of her gloves was pulled away to frame her face and trail down her back. Her ebony hair reminded him of the smoothest jet broach, framed her richly colored angelic face. Her eyes, unlike McClain’s tropical blue, was like the sharpest cut crystal blue that seemed to reflect a kaleidoscope of colors. She was absolutely stunning and Keith felt like he wasn’t dressed well enough to be in her presence.

“This is Mr. Kogane, a friend of mine,” McClain said.

The fact McClain called him a _friend_ made Keith’s heart jump in joy.

He tipped his hat and bowed his head in greeting. “How do you do?”

“I’m a duchess of the Court, Allura Altea.” She extended her free, lace clad hand out to Keith. It was a little difficult trying to maneuver across McClain to peck the top of her hand while they walked, even at the slow pace they were going.

“A please to meet you,” He said once he pulled back.

“The pleasure is all mine! Is this the same Mr. Kogane you speak of?” She turned to McClain, a daring look in her eye.

“The very same.” McClain smiled sheepishly.

“I hope it’s all good things you’ve said,” Keith said.

“Only the kindest. Now if you gentlemen would excuse me.” With a nod of her head, she slipped away before either could get a proper goodbye.

“Wonderful, isn’t she?” McClain said, eyes lingering where she slipped away.

“She is.” She really was. She had a certain aura that radiated confidence, her head stood tall and her eyes gleamed with a deep knowledge that Keith couldn’t begin to comprehend.

“I’m glad I got to see you again. It’s been difficult lately, and it’s nice to see a familiar face.”

Keith agreed. It’s been a while since they’ve seen each other, even though they parted on a bitter note. “How was your trip?”

“It was alright. Mostly just business.” McClain shrugged.

A recognizable street came up ahead, one Keith came down earlier on his way from the house. It reminded he he was out for errands, not a funeral.

“I’m sorry, but I have to get going. It was nice seeing you again.” Keith tipped his hat and gave a curt bow of his head.

“The same to you too, Mr. Kogane.” McClain tipped his hat back. “Perhaps next time we can meet under more. . . pleasurable circumstances.”

With that, Keith was off down the road, a spring in his step despite the funeral procession he left behind. It was indeed very nice to see McClain again.

Shiro was right, there must be something going on in fae society. A mother was found out to be a Changeling, more children were disappearing off the streets, a girl was found dead in a bed of flowers and her hands gone in front of a church, a man snapped and turned deranged in the middle of an intersection. The number of incidents kept rising, and faerie rings kept popping up all over the park and people’s yards. Keith almost tripped into one on his way home.

It was scary. People were rushing to the church, the police, even away from the city. Anywhere they could to get away or find shelter from the attacks.

“An acquaintance of mine hasn’t shown up to work in a week. They’re saying he probably fell into a faerie ring,” Shiro said over a cup of tea one night.

“What do you thinks going on to cause this?” Keith sighed. “They have their own royal courts, so you think there’s a civil war brewing? Or-“

“Or a coup.” Shiro finished.

“What’s the Queen saying?”

“Nothing. It’s not serious enough until it hurts her own people. The number of deaths and disappearances are still relatively low but. . .”

“But nothing!” Keith slammed his fist on the table. The cups shook on impact. “There should be no one disappearing or dying in the street without their legs or hands or whatever. They need to be _stopped_.”

Shiro sighed and took a long sip of his tea. “How? It’s not like we can send an army into their side and overthrow Tatiana and Oberon. They’re powerful fae who’ve been around for hundreds, perhaps thousands of years. The army, no matter how powerful it’s become, can’t take out an ancient power like that. The most we can do is be extra careful. Follow the Nine Rules.”

“I’m not turning my clothes inside out.” Keith frowned.

A grin broke out across Shiro’s face. “Maybe you will. I hope you wouldn’t have to, but I also hope I’m around if you did it. I bet you’d look ridiculous with that fancy coat of yours, lapels and shiny buttons, inside out. Speaking of your buttons, where did you get them? I thought you sold them?”

Keith hated the burning ache building in his throat. He tentatively took a sip of tea and averted his eyes from Shiro. He can lie by not saying anything, but he’s a terrible, terrible liar if asked a direct question he couldn’t avoid.

“A-“ the burn felt like a candle was lit in throat, hot wax dripped down his esophagus and pooled in his stomach like a hot, heavy weight. “A friend of mine gave them to me.” He still couldn’t believe Shiro hadn’t noted them earlier.

“They’re nice. Is that where you got the new gloves, too?” His eyes were calculating. He knew Keith couldn’t lie for the life of him.

Keith shifted in his seat. He couldn’t meet his eyes.“Yes.”

“That fancy necktie, too? The one you gave me?” Shiro brushed a hand over the stark white linen tied around his neck.

“What else did he give you?” Shiro’s tone was even. Not angry, not concerned, but blank and emotionless.

“Um, that really good roast we had that one night. Fruit baskets, potatoes, bread. This tea.” He couldn’t come up with a lie, the truth tumbled out of his mouth.

Shiro’s eyes brightened, then narrowed in a flash. “You know fae like to lure people in with gifts and food, right? If this person’s a-“

“He’s not.” Keith’s tongue tasted like ash. He didn’t want to tell Shiro under any circumstances that he was suspicious for a little bit. If Shiro knew Keith even _suspected_ he would make them cut ties. He understands why, he really does. But he absolutely doesn’t want to _not_ see McClain. Keith would definitely consider him a close friend at this point. “His name is Lance McClain, a gentleman of the Court as he put it. He wears tacky clothes and likes to hang around the shipyard. He- he promised to take me to dinner and to an opera one night.” His face was positively _burning_ at the last part.

Shiro leaned back from where he’d been examining Keith and smiled. “A rich man? Keith, you little _gold digger!”_ Shiro laughed a hearty laugh that shook the table.

“It’s not like that! He’s a good friend of mine!” His face felt even hotter. There was a lingering ashy taste to his tongue.

It was no use. Shiro was still howling with laughter. Once he calmed down and wiped the tears from his eyes, he said, “I was nervous for a second there. But I’m glad you’re happy, really. Tell him I said thank you for the gifts. I do want to meet this friend of yours soon. You got to meet Matt, so now I get to meet this McClain.”

“Matt?”

“Oh, Mr. Holt. Sorry, um. . .” It was Shiro’s turn to turn bright red.

“Mhm, ‘Matt’. Just a friend, right?” Keith grinned cheekily at him.

“Drop it.”

Keith saw McClain the next morning, bright eyed and bushy tailed. Ever since the funeral, Keith had barely seen him around. Most of the time it was a glimpse in the crowd, clad in black and blended in with the rest of the muted colors. He missed the bright colored jackets and sparkling hat decorations.

It was December now, and Christmas was coming fast. The funeral had been almost a fortnight before.

McClain was loitering outside the gates at the shipyard, waiting for Keith to finish for the day, collect his pay, and go home. He was still clad in the mourning black, but there was a pearl pin in the silk cravat.

“It’s been a while, Mr. McClain,” Keith greeted once he stepped outside the gate.

“Indeed it had. My apologies for my absence it’s been. . . difficult lately.” McClain looked tired.

“It’s understandable. You’re in mourning.”

“Are you in a rush to go home?” McClain asked.

“No, not really. My brother’s out with a friend tonight so there’s nothing to go home to.”

“Would you like to take a walk with me? We’ve barely seen each other lately, I’d like to catch up.” McClain offered his hand out to Keith.

He could feel the ghost of his hand from when it held his during the funeral procession. He was wearing the soft leather gloves today, too.

“I would love to.” He took his hand and they meandered down the street. Keith was tired, and wanted to eat his supper and go to bed early tonight, but he didn’t mind putting his plans off a bit.

They talked about anything and everything, what the other had missed, of their loved ones, Keith’s work, McClain’s avid social life. It was nice.

“Hunk didn’t believe me when I said I’ll toss the grape into this Earl’s tea cup from the balcony. Kudos to him for not doubting my ability to do it, he just didn’t think I _would_ . The tea splashed all over his white shirt and stained that nasty yellow cravat.” McClain snorted. “The _look_ on his face! He didn’t suspect it was me since it seemed the grape came out of nowhere, but I wish he knew who had done it, that it was I who got back at him for this nasty comments.”

Keith laughed. They had wandered away from the shipyard and deeper into the city. It was long past twilight and people were turning in for supper. No one was home, so there was no rush for him to leave.

“Why are you making fun of the Earl for a poor choice in cravat color when you’re usually no better?” Keith said.

McClain gasped in offense. “I do _not_ have poor color choices! Have you ever seen me in a disgustingly bright yellow cravat?”

“No, but you wore an orange one once.”

“It was _blood orange!”_ McClain squaked.

“Still sounds like a citrus to me,” Keith snickered.

It happened too fast. One second, they were passing under a buildings overhang, the next McClain had shoved Keith into the dirt, followed by a loud _clang_ . A _thunk_ that sounded an awful lot like a human body hitting something too hard, and a cry of pain resonated in Keith’s ears.

It took Keith a moment to figure out what happened. He spotted McClain on the ground next to him and curled in on himself. He felt a jolt in his chest at the sight.

“What- Mr. McClain? Are you alright?” What a stupid question. Keith gently rested his hand on McClain’s back, only for him to flinch at the touch.

“I’m fine, it just nicked my shoulder. I-” He sucked in a breath between gritted teeth. “Bloody _hell_ that hurt.”

Keith noticed the hand gripping his right shoulder in a death grip. He spotted the cast-iron window sill lying on the ground, and looked up to see a window lacking a sill on the second floor. Any confusion he had about what happened cleared away instantaneously and was replaced by a gut-wrenching worry.

“Let me see. We might need to find a doctor.” Keith tried to reach out again, only for his hand to be swatted away.

“It’s not broken,” McClain said.

“Mr. McClain, let me at least see it to put myself at ease,” Keith pleaded.

“I’ll be okay, please trust me, Mr. Kogane.” McClain stumbled to his feet and brushed his coat of dirt. He winced from the movement.

Keith picked McClain’s silk hat from the ground and passed it to him. “You saved me. Even if you weren’t my friend, I have a right to be concerned.”

McClain dusted off the hat and placed it back on his head with a grin. “I’m glad I’m seen as a friend in your eyes. Now let me walk you home, it’s getting late.”

“Are you _sure_ you’re okay?” Keith eyed his shoulder suspiciously.

“If I wasn’t, would I be able to do this?” To price his point, McClain danced a little jig in the dirt and spun around, arms flapping like some god awful bird with wings too long and gangly. Keith laughed at his antics, but the strain on McClain’s brow didn’t go past him.

“Would you like to stay for dinner, since you seem well enough?” The words came out in a rush. Keith mentally smacked himself for speaking without thinking. Why would McClain, a gentleman of the Court, want to stay for dinner at a poor man’s house and eat his poor man food?

“I would love to.” McClain stopped his “dancing” to face Keith with a grin. Of course he said yes. He’s a gentleman, it would be rude of him to say no, no matter how foul the food or dilapidated the table is.

Keith lead the way to his place, a run down shared home in which he and Shiro lived in a one-room space  up on the third floor. It was a little embarrassing, bringing someone so finely dressed to his home. He was polite upon entering the room. Hung up his coat and hat, removed his gloves, and took in his surrounding with no look of disgust on his face. He must be good at hiding it.

“Please, sit down. I’ll start a fire and get dinner started.” Keith gestured toward the rickety table with mismatching chairs. McClain hesitantly sat down, winced at the squeak from the seat. He continued to peer around the small space as Keith busied himself with starting a fire and brewing a pot of tea.

“I don’t have any crumpets to go with the tea, nor fancy biscuits, but you can wait for dinner to be ready, right?” Keith passed the steaming cup to McClain, who thanked him and gently blew at the hot steam.

“Is this the black tea blend I gave you?” McClain asked fondly.

“It is,” Keith said. “I like to drink it on particularly early mornings. It wakes me up better than the other blend I have.”

“There’s cinnamon and ginger in it. They can give you quite a bit of energy for the morning.” McClain sipped the tea, but drew back quickly and stuck out his tongue. “At least you know how to properly brew black tea. I’m so used to the sad, cold tea I’m served whenever I’ve given a hot cup it’s a shock.”

Keith laughed. “You’re welcome. I like my tea scalding hot, so I tend to boil it. Shiro likes his lukewarm so I mix a little cold water in before I steep the tea for his cup in the morning.”

“Shiro’s you’re brother, right? You talk about him a lot.”

“He’s my only family and best friend. I’m going to have a lot to say about him.” Keith turned back to the kitchen and took out ingredients for dinner. He grabbed the least hardened loaf, some leftover potatoes from McClain, and a little bit of lamb he was going to cook up for him and Shiro tomorrow. They could eat something else then.

“Is it just the two of you here?”

“Yeah. Dad passed away when I was eight, and I never knew my mum. Shiro said we’re only half-brothers, since his mother passed away long before I was born and he doesn’t remember who mine was.”

“I’m sorry.” McClain looked humbled, head bowed into the steam of his tea and shoulders slumped. “I didn’t mean to pry.”

Keith waved a dismissive hand. “There’s nothing to apologize for. It’s in the past. It’s not like it was your fault.”

They fell into a gentle silence, filled only with the cackling of the fire and Keith bustling around their small kitchenette.

Once dinner was served and they said Grace, the two of them dug into the meal. McClain praised his cooking, said it was “exactly what he needed”. Keith asked him to clarify and he simply shrugged and stuffed more potatoes into his mouth.

They enjoyed the meal in a tentative kind of quiet, broken by the playful banter and jabs at each other’s eating habits. Keith couldn’t help but let his eyes trail to McClain’s right shoulder, where a nasty bruise must be blooming. He seemed fine, favored the shoulder, but it still left a coppery taste in Keith’s mouth to think about what could have happened.

“I want to thank you,” Keith said, interrupting the comfortable silence they’ve settled into toward the end of their meal. “You’ve done so much for me, and now you’ve gone and saved my _life._ I’m indebted to you.”

McClained waved a hand as if to brush away Keith’s words. “You are indebted to me, but consider it paid with these fantastic potatoes.”

Keith laughed. “Don’t flatter yourself. They’re not cooked the best, but I’m glad you really like them.”

“Mr. Kogane, I love and appreciate these potatoes.”

After dinner was cleared, the dishes washed, and evening tea served, the two pulled up chairs next to the fire and continued to talk. He heard the church bells indicate it was well past ten by the time McClain let out a harsh yawn.

“I would love to stay longer,” he said, standing up to stretch. “But I must be going.”

As if spurred by McClain’s words, the front door was thrown open with such force it bounced against the wall. Keith couldn’t help but jump a bit at the sound.

Shiro stumbled into the room with a flushed face and landed face down on the bed, not even bothering to remove his coat and hat.

“Shiro! What happened?” Keith rushed to Shiro’s side and attempted to roll him over.

“Mead.” It was a muffled grumble against the sheets. Keith groaned and stopped trying to roll Shiro over.

“I’m sorry, Mr. McClain. It seems my brother had a _wonderful time_ out tonight. You’ll have to excuse him.” Keith wondered why God had chosen this moment for Shiro to stumble home drunk.

“It’s alright. I understand how addicting a good pint of mead could be. I’ll take this as my queue to leave.” McClain turned to put on his coat and hat.

As if stabbed by a hot poker, Shiro made a strangled sound and lurched up out of bed and onto his feet with a surprising amount of precision for someone as drunk as he was.

“ _You_ must be Mr. McClain! I’ve heard so much about you from Keith!” Shiro stuck out his hand toward McClain, eyes glazed and cheeks flushed from the alcohol in his system.

“That I am, and you must be the other Kogane brother. I’ve heard much about you,” McClain said and shook his hand. Shiro, perhaps too out of it and too loose in his actions, vigorously shook his hand. The whole movement jerked McClain’s entire arm. There was a sparkle from the firelight and mirth in his eyes.

“It’s a pleasure to finally meet you,” Shiro said.

“Oh no, the pleasure is all mine. Mr. Kogane didn’t tell me that his brother was also handsome. Is it something that runs in the family?”

Keith felt a spark of jealousy shoot through his spine. He knows how handsome Shiro is, and seeing McClain making those sparkly eyes at his brother put a foul taste in his mouth.

Shiro boasted a loud laugh and stumbled back onto the bed. “You’re charmin’. I like ‘im he’s-he’s nice.”

In the dim light of the lamp on the table by the door and firelight, Keith noticed angry red marks peeking out of the collar of his shirt and traced the cuff of his ear. It looked ghastly and swollen, and Keith mentally berated himself for not noticing them at first. They looked like. . . burns? When did McClain burn his ear?

Keith could swear the burns on his neck and ear weren’t there earlier in the evening when McClain had picked him up from work

“I really do must be going,” McClain said, setting his hat on his head and adjusting his gloves. “I have an early morning so I best be getting home to sleep. Good night, you two. I hope to see you again soon.”

“I’ll walk you out,” Keith said quickly before McClain could protest. He practically yanked McClain out the door and down the stairwell.

“I had a good evening here, thank you,” McClain said once they reached the main doors.

“Good.” Keith practically shoved them out into the street. A fog had settled since they were last outside, their breaths misted in the chilled night air.

“Are you alright? You seem to be in a bad mood,” McClain grabbed Keith’s arm and forced him to turn and face him. His blue eyes were stormy in the dimmed street light.

“I’m- nothing. It’s late, a little tired is all,” he said. He tried not to look at the swollen ear, keeping his eyes trained on his shoes instead.

“You know,” McClain said. “I wish you would have told me your brother is also handsome.”

Keith’s brow twitched. “We _are_ blood related, you know. It makes sense we’d look alike.”

McClain hummed and brushed back a stray lock of Keith’s hair. He tried to suppress a gasp and looked up from his shoes.

“Shiro is pretty attractive, but you’re much more handsome than he is.” McClain’s voice was so soft.

Keith felt his face flush. “Don’t lie like that, everyone knows-”

“I’m not everyone and I would never lie.” McClain’s eyes bored down into his, shimmering and sparkling like a tropical sea that tricks you into thinking it’s much less deeper than it actually is.

McClain leaned forward, and Keith swore his heart leaped to his throat. “You’re a wonderfully kind, selfless man, Mr. Kogane. I can’t help but be drawn to you.”

A pair of cool lips brushed his cheek, barely even a peck but it was enough to send Keith’s poor heart into overdrive. McClain pulled away, and Keith couldn’t help but caress the spot McClain’s lips touched ever so softly.

“Sweet dreams, Mr. Kogane.” With the usual dramatic flourish if his cape and a tip of his hat, he was gone down the street.

Keith remained glued to the dirt, thoughts racing a million miles an hour. The burns scared him, but this _infatuation_ scared him even more. He never liked people in general, never thought of marrying or having a family of his own one day.

His cheeks burned in the cold air. McClain was holding his heart in his dainty hands and squeezing the life out of it.

Afrigid breeze reminded Keith he wasn’t wearing a coat and nudged him to head back inside before he caught a cold. A speck of brilliant blue caught the corner of his eye. He had to do a double take to make sure he wasn’t seeing things.

It was a handful of gorgeous blue, trumpet-shaped flowers sprouting from the dirt.The leaves were wide like lily pads and stems curly and twisted like vines. It was just a little spot of them on the side of the road exactly where McClain stood in front of him only moments ago.

The warm fingers wrapped around his heart turned cold and splintering, the grip squeezed his chest tight as if it wanted to make Keith’s heart burst. That warm feeling that pumped through his veins turned sharp and ladened with fear.

Without looking back, he rushed upstairs to his home. Shiro was sound asleep, legs hanging off his bed and still fully dressed. He shook him awake.

“Hng wha’ do you wan’?” Shiro slurred. There was drool soaking his bed and shiny on his cheek and chin.

“If a faerie touches iron, what happens to them?” Keith asked, near frantic.

“They burn. Hm why?”

“And what about flowers? Besides the faerie rings, what do the flowers mean?” He felt tears prickling in the corners of his eyes.

“They appear wherever a faerie has been. Kinda just pop up like. . . pop.” Shiro barely got the words out before he rolled over and fell back to sleep.

Keith got Shiro out of his shoes, coat, vest, suspenders, and necktie to keep his hands from shaking, to keep his mind off of those flowers. He didn’t want to think about it yet.

He found himself sitting by the window, the pocket watch he took from McClain clutched in his hands. The metal had warmed in his grasp. He popped it open and clicked it shut incesstintly. The sound it made grounded him when his thoughts kept drifting off to the beautiful trumpet shaped flowers and the even more beautiful blue eyes. He had checked Shiro’s flower encyclopedia to see what they were called. The only problem was when he found the page with illustrations of them, he couldn’t read the label. Keith never learned how.

The cup where the forget-me-not had lived in was still on the windowsill. They had tossed the limp corpse of the flower out the window when all the color and life drained from it. Keith realized where that flower must have come from.

Lance McClain was a faerie.

He was a faerie who knew Keith’s name, accepted gifts from, and thanked. Lance McClain owned him now.

_I’m indebted to you._

Keith couldn’t help but huff out a laugh. That was probably hilarious to McClain when he said that, that Keith didn’t realize the weight of his words.

The warm, bubbling feeling from earlier was gone, but he hadn’t quite willed it away yet. He had all the evidence he needed, but he wanted to hear from McClain’s own mouth the truth.

If he was truly a fae, he wouldn’t be able to lie.

The fae were dangerous. The Seelie Court was run by creatures of malice and evil, unable to stand the holy church bells due to their devilish nature. They stole babies and women and replaced them with their own, they lured people into their kingdoms and feasted upon their souls. They were old and powerful, Oberon and Tatiana being the oldest of them all. Sly, deceitful, evil creatures of the other world who lived on worldly pleasures.

Keith barely slept a wink that night, the gold pocket watch clutched tight in his hand.

His body was taunt with nerves, a tangled ball of anxiety rested in his abdomen. It felt like he was walking on glass the next two days, waiting for McClain to pop out of some faerie ring and demand he gives him his face.

He carried St. John’s wort in his pocket and wore his shirt inside out.

Work was picking up at the shipyard. The first snow was coming soon and once it got too cold and snowy the shipyard will close until the cold lifted, so they were trying to get as much work as they could. It was fine. It got Keith’s mind off McClain with all the work and extra money he was raking in.

He surprised Keith one night after an outing. He and a few men from the shipyard had decided to end the season with a bang and go to a nearby pub. It was almost midnight and he decided to head home before Shiro got too worried. He was a little buzzed, with a warm in his face and loose limbs. He stumbled around the corner and bumped face first into something solid.

“Sorry,” he mumbled and attempted to move around the person.

“Mr. Kogane.” A familiar hand clasped his arm. A spike of adrenaline and fear coursed through Keith’s muddled head. “Fancy seeing you here.”

“Mr. McClain,” he tried to keep his tone level. “Fancy night. You’re here.” Keith wanted to slap is alcohol muddled brain.

McClain snickered. “Feeling alright?”

“Mead.”

“You too? Let’s get you home before you end up in an alley somewhere.” McClain reached over to take Keith’s hand and lead him away.

“No no, not that way.” Keith yanked his hand back before Lance could reach it. McClain frowned but didn’t try and reach for his hand again. “Let’s go this way.”

He had a plan. He had drilled it into his head so even his dizzied brain couldn’t mess it up, but walking next to McClain seemed to clear the booze from his system, enabling him to think clearer. It was that buzz under his skin that cleared some of the fog in his head,  most likely due to the anxiety creeping up. That was good, he would be able to do this if he was a bit more sober.

The plan was to take Lance around to a nearby church, around the peak of the hour when the bells went off. He would ask him if he was a faerie and, even if he tried to talk his way out of answering straight, the church bells would give him the answer.

It would hurt a lot, but Keith told himself that as a faerie, McClain had the pain coming.

They didn’t say a word as Keith took him “the long way around”. McClain walked next to him humming under his breath. Their hands brushed once, twice, three times before Keith had to pull away.

St. James was around the corner now. Keith slowed his walk, but didn’t stop.

“Mr. McClain?” Keith said, voice barely above a whisper. The street was so quiet. It felt as if he spoke any louder he would break the city’s slumber.

“Hm?”

“Answer me honestly.” Keith stopped walking and turned to face McClain. The church spires rose ominously to the pitch black sky behind Keith, the moon stood high and almost full in the sky, awashing the streets with a silver glow. McClain’s eyes shone like a silken blue, his warm skin washed out by the moonlight. He was beautiful.

“What’s the matter, Mr.-”

“Don’t say my name, please.” _Be polite._

McClain clamped his mouth shut in a firm line, his eyes flashed.

“What are you?” Keith’s heart was back in his throat, like the other night outside his home. Then, he had been full of a buzzing warmth that danced across his skin. Now it was a hum of  agitation and anxiety.

McClain cocked his head in confusion, but his eyes had hardened.  He was putting up a front. “I’m a gentleman of the Court, I’ve told you this.”

“No, what else. You’re not human.”

His eyes narrowed, but he didn’t say anything. Keith took that as a sign to keep going.

“Yes or no,” Keith gulped, his heart pounded in his chest and hands shook. _Look a fae directly in their eye and hold their gaze to gain control._ Keith forces himself to meet McClain’s eyes. “Are you a faerie?”

A cloud moved over the moon, snuffing out the silver light for a moment. The wind was picking up and it seemed the temperature had dropped.

He didn’t get a response. McClain stayed silent.

“ _Answer me!”_ Keith’s voice rang out through the empty street.

The dark clouds drifted away from the moon, the pale glow washed over them again. In the full silvery light, McClain’s eyes seemed to glow a dangerous shade of blue.

“I am,” he whispered. “I’m a gentleman of the Seelie Court.”

Keith bared his teeth and nearly growled out his words. “Get away from me, you filthy fae.”

McClain’s face sombered. He raised his hands in defense and took a tentative step forward. Keith scrambled backward.

“Mr. Kogane, please let me-”

“ _Don’t say my name! Please!”_

The bell tolled midnight. It was right behind Keith, and echoed through the city streets and bounced off the windows and walls. He could feel the first _bong_ resonate through his chest and vibrate down to his toes. It was melodic and beautiful, haunting in the midnight moonlight.

McClain didn’t think so. He clapped his hands over his ears and stumbled back, a whine ripped from his throat. It was the midnight toll, the longest and loudest and lasted for six minutes. His face was twisted in a look of pain, eyes glowing and teeth bared. Each toll of the bell made him jerk back and groan louder in pain, until he couldn’t hold himself up and collapsed into a heap on the ground dry heaving. An inhuman scream tore from his throat, so loud and chilling, it forced Keith to step back in fear.

Keith could only watch his shuddering form, whimper and cry in agony with each toll. He couldn’t tear his eyes away from him, but he knows he has to get away before the bell stops and McClain decides to rip him apart for the trap.

With one last look, Keith turned tail and ran.

“ _Please listen to me!”_ McClain’s voice was warbled and broken, and yet he tried to call out to Keith’s retreating back.

He had mere minutes to get as far away as he could from that place before the bell stopped. He headed toward the Thames, where McClain wouldn’t be able to follow him. _Cross streams and rivers to escape_. His feet pounded against the dirt, his breath came out in painful huffs, but he needed to get out of there.

Around another corner, Keith spotted the London Bridge. With hope in sight, he ran faster.

“ _Come back!”_

Keith’s lungs burned, his legs burned, his eyes burned. The bells had stopped and McClain had recovered enough to go after him. He was dead. He’s going to die. He’s going to be dragged off into the Seelie Court and have who knows what done to him. He’ll never see Shiro again. He didn’t risk turning around to see how close McClain was.

When his foot made contact with the bridge, a sigh of relief swept through him. He slowed down his sprint to a light run, stopping to take a breath and get his bearings.

“Keith!”

Keith jerked up. McClain, his hat was gone and hair windswept At the entrance of the bridge, it was like an invisible force tripped him. He fell into a heap, twenty feet away and heaving as hard as Keith was. He gathered himself up onto his hands and knees and lifted his head. His face, damp with sweat, was so sorrowful it tugged something deep in his chest. He took in a lungful of air, still trying to gather his bearings. Neither of them spoke for a moment.

“Being too consumed in fear all the time will result misery,” McClain finally said. “If you would let me explain myself, prove to you I’m not like the ones you fear- I’m not-”

“I don’t want to hear it from some _fae,”_ Keith spits. “Go away, and don’t ever show your face to me again!”

“Keith wait-”

Keith didn’t hear the rest. He took off down the bridge to the other side. McClain’s cries and pleads echoed behind him, rang in the air like a haunted church bell.

A final wail, filled with raw pain and sorrow, faded into the night before he was too far away for Keith to hear his cries anymore.

He collapsed once on the other side of the Thames and took a moment to catch his wheezing breath. He laid back in the dirt and watched the moon wink at him one last time before the clouds completely moved in.

A speck of white, cold and so, so delicate, drifted from the roll of clouds above and landed on his cheek. It melted and left a wet spot on his heated skin. Then another. And another. It was the first snow of the season.

Keith finally let himself cry under the quiet snowfall.


	2. Daffodil

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Keith and Shiro are in trouble and the last person Keith wants to see extends a helping hand.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry it took so long but its like 19k plus im working on two halloween projects now haha. the next chapter is already on a roll.  
> btw, this is based off midsummer nights dream to some extent but that should be waaay more obvious in the final part uwu  
> thanks stella for ur contribution and everyone else who supported my BS youre so valid.  
> this is for you beep : )

The snow hadn’t let up at all since that night. The streets became icy and packed with snow, making it nearly impossible to get to or from anywhere. December was frigid this year and winter has yet to come. It was already so cold, they took turns through the night trying to keep the fire alive and slept with their coats on top of their blanket. Even on nights when the snow was light and he came home early, he couldn’t muster the energy to do anything.The shipyard was closed until February, leaving Keith to find a new job.

He shoveled snow. All day, from morning til dusk he had a hefty shovel in his hands and a scarf around his face to fight the cold. He left before Shiro would wake up and came home after supper, too tired to do anything but eat then fall asleep. On Sundays, Shiro would try to  pester him away from the window, out of bed , out to go see Holt after work. Keith stubbornly stayed there, finger tracing the rim of his tea cup that was too cold to drink. This is how he wanted to live right now. Needed to, in fact. Especially after that night in front of the church, where McClain chased him down the streets to the bank of the Thames and begged him to listen. A part of him wished he would have at least heard McClain out, but the more rational, fearful, side of him said what he did was the correct thing to do.

He had come home well after one in the morning, shivering and cold with puffy eyes and a ghastly look on his face. While he had warmed himself up by the fire, he’d told Shiro everything. How he’d met him in the street (omitted the pickpocketing detail, so not everything), how they kept running into each other. Of McClain bringing him gifts and attention. The fond looks, and warm feeling in Keith’s chest. The trumpet-shaped flowers in the street. The church.

Shiro didn’t say a word through his tale, instead he hugged him tight and stroked his back. That night they had slept in Shiro’s bed. 

One day, Keith had pointed to the page with the blue flowers he saw in the street that night and asked Shiro to read it out to him.

“They’re morning glories. It blooms in the morning and dies by the afternoon, and that’s supposed to symbolize love, affection, and morality; how fleeting the nature of affection is. But it blooms new flowers every morning as the renewal nature of love. It’s printed a lot on gravestones to signify mourning, the shortness of life, death of love, and resurrection.” He looked up at Keith expectantly. He simply hummed in acknowledgement and turned back to the window.

Keith stayed away from people on the streets, took shortcuts and long ways around the city. He moved through his days in a fog; a cloud that muted his thoughts from the worst of it all. It’s been roughly a fortnight since the incident. At night sometimes, he could still feel the burn of his lungs and the heat in his eyes. It hurt so much. It was hard to sleep as it was with the cold seeping through the cracks of their house, but the ghostly burn and echoing screams kept him awake. Of course, Shiro noticed he wasn’t sleeping. He said Keith’s snores are so familiar now it lulls him to sleep. With Keith not sleeping, neither was Shiro. He felt bad for depriving Shiro of his much needed rest.

The haze cleared a little on Christmas Eve. The night before, while Shiro was out with Holt, he counted out his stash of pounds from under his pillow and sighed in relief. He had more than enough money for the shoes. The rest, he figured, he could either splurge for Christmas dinner or save it for an emergency. Now on Christmas Eve, he walked out of the shoe shop with a bag at his side and a grin on his cold lips for the first time in a while. Out of habit, he reached into his inner coat pocket and pulled out the heavy pocket watch to check the time. 

The day after the incident across the London Bridge, he had gone back and stood leaning over the railing, the watch shaking in his harsh grasp. The cold was the only thing grounding him to that moment. He had raised his hand above his head as if to throw it in the Thames. He really was going to throw it. But he stood there too long, arm shaking over his head and eyes wet with unshed tears. He couldn’t. 

Now, he resigned to at least putting it to use. It wouldn’t bring in much money, but it’s nice being able to tell time. He started clipping it to the inside of his coat to keep it secured to his person, the weight of it pressed into his side like a faux gold anchor. 

He hadn’t picked a pocket since McClain. Work had been decent, gave him enough to survive. It was a niggling feeling, a warning almost, in the back of his head that sounded an awful lot like McClain to stay away from pockets. Worst, or best, of all, he hadn’t seen McClain since. Not even a flash of a bright coat through the crowded streets. It was as if the single spot of color in the dreary mess of a city blotched itself out. Well, Keith blotted it out. 

Keith paused on the side of the road to tug out the ornate watch and check the time. Shiro won’t be home for another hour, giving him plenty of time to get home and hide his gift before then. 

The street transitioned from wood to dirt as he made his way from a nicer part of London toward his and Shiro’s home. The streets were emptying early since everyone was in a hurry to get home to start celebrating Christmas early. 

A buzzing sensation danced across Keith’s skin. It felt awfully familiar. He jerked to a stop and turned to check his surroundings.  A prickling sensation on the back of his neck made the hairs there stand on ends. He hated the anxiety that still plagued him, the ominous feeling of being watched. The street was mostly empty, which was usual for this hour, but understandable for the date. He picked up the pace to a near sprint the rest of the way home. 

Shiro loved the shoes. He made a show of tossing his old, worn through shoes away and strutting up and down their tiny room in his shiny new shoes. Keith had received his own little notebook from Shiro, bound in black leather with a red cord to wrap around the waist and hold it shut. He’d always wanted to learn to draw, like Shiro, but was reluctant to ask to borrow paper since it was so expensive. The first thing he drew was Shiro in his shiny new shoes. He had him pose in front of the fire, foot propped up on a chair and face angled away with a smile dancing on his lips. 

After church, they met up with Holt and a few other acquaintances and headed to the nearest pub to drink and drink and drink. None of them could afford all the fancy gifts or dinners, and instead chose to celebrate the birth of Jesus with as much alcohol and fun as their bodies could handle. 

Keith hadn’t been this red, this warm, nor this happy in a long time.

Boxing Day, Shiro and Keith awoke curled up in Keith’s bed with the nastiest hangovers. Shiro rolled over and barfed. They spent the day cozied up inside, nursing their leftover sickness by the fire with cups of tea and hard bread. A twang of pain echoed through Keith’s chest whenever he took a sip of tea, since it was McClain who had given him this one.

Holt was coming by more and more often, staying for supper and sometimes even overnight in Shiro’s bed. He would have a cup of morning tea with them and run off before Keith was fully awake on those days. Shiro would disappear with him, sometimes. 

It was getting easier to breathe, taking the days one at a time. He wanted to wipe McClain from his memory, keeping busy and focusing on his brother and his odd jobs. In his spare time, he would sit in front of the hearth drawing in his sketchbook. He found himself drawing McClain’s profile more than once. He tore out those pages and tossed them in the fire.

The week between Christmas and New Years left a weird tension in the air, a gasp that hasn’t quite left one’s lips. The whole city was holding its breath for the end. Keith felt a miasma lurking in the horizon. 

“Hey Shiro? I’m going to be late on New Year's’ Eve, can you throw out the ashes in the hearth?” Keith had asked one evening. Shiro grunted an agreement, head bent low in a book he was reading. A fresh hearth, Keith figured, would mean a fresh start to the New Year. 

New Year’s Eve Keith found himself wandering back home from work, hat pulled low to keep the gently falling snow from landing on his cheeks. His toes were cold, and the wind went right through his coat and sent shivers down his back. His hands were thankfully warm. A prickling sensation grazed the back of his neck, one that wasn’t from the cold wind.

Up ahead on the street, a familiar head of ink black hair came into view. She was too close to duck into an alley and was steadily approaching from the direction he was headed. Duchess Altea’s midnight blue dress, trimmed with black fur and gold, was wide enough to make anyone who walked by give her a wide berth. A man walked with her a few paces behind, clad in a black wool cloak and a silky top hat with a little holly branch tucked in the band. The only thing Keith could see of his face was the bright orange mustache. 

Keith tipped his hat in greeting, but averted his eyes. He didn’t have the chance to get away.

Duchess Altea extended her hand for him to take and walk along with her. Etiquette drilled into his head by Shiro told him he must never ignore a lady’s presence and give her his full attention. With no other choice, he took her hand and turned to follow along where she strolled down the street, down the way Keith just came from.

“Good afternoon, Mr. Kogane,” she greeted him. She didn’t look directly at him, instead kept her eyes forward. Her hand held onto his arm firmly, her skirt brushed his legs.

“Good afternoon, Your Grace,” he said. 

“I hope everything has been alright with you?” Her hand was so warm.

“Pleasant enough.” This conversation was going nowhere. He wanted to get out of here, but her hand was like a steel clamp around him. “You hurt him.”

Keith stumbled over his feet at her icy words. “What?”

“My dear friend Lance.” Her hand gripped him harder, he swore she was going to leave a bruise on the crook of his arm. “You broke his heart and left him weeping under the first snow. Why, Mr. Kogane, did you run?”

“You’re fae,” he whispered.

“We are. And we fear you as much as you fear us. But we have a reason to,” she pulled him from the road. Panic flashed through Keith’s veins. She was going to kill him, drag him into a faerie ring and make him dance until he dies. She stopped under a tree, bowed under the weight of ice and snow. Her companion stayed a few paces behind her, without saying a word. “Your kind pass laws to have us detained and eradicated, tell terrifying stories to your young of how we will kidnap them from their homes, and actively seek to repel us.”

“You’ve hurt us,” Keith hissed.

“Have I?” She arched a dark eyebrow at him.

“I. . . no, you haven’t, but-”

“And you haven’t hurt me. It’s not all of us, but there are some who will inflict pain upon humans for the pleasure of it. I am not one of them. Neither is Lance. Humans are the same, not all of them can harm you, but there are many who will.”

“How am I supposed to know that?  _ Trust _ your words? You lot are scheming creatures who have no morals.” He was getting angry, overtaking the fear that pumped in his veins. He was feeling white-hot and red. She could kill him oh so easily, but he’s not going to let her do that without a fight.

“We cannot lie. Humans can, and do quite often. Are you scared of me?”

“No,” he snapped.

“See? So easily. I can’t fathom squeezing out an ounce of dishonesty from my mouth. We can’t lie. I don’t lie when I say why should you be scared of faeries, of the few who will harm you, when you aren’t scared of humans when there are even more who are willing to hurt you, take advantage of you, or even  _ kill _ you?”

Keith clamped his mouth shut and worked his jaw, the heat ebbing away. “Who said I wasn’t scared of humans, too? I’m at the bottom of the food chain, I have a lot to fear.”

“Then be conscious of the faeries, use your own moral judgement to determine who’s truly there to harm you, as you do with humans,” Allura said. There was a glitter of mischief in her crystal blue eye. “We fae folk are actually quite playful, but our definition of a good time differs from you mortals.”

She turned on her heel with a swish of her black velvet cloak, gold earrings glinting in the cool light. “Come, Coran. We must prepare for tonight. And I’ll be seeing you quite soon, Mr. Kogane.” 

Keith watched her and her escort drift off into the crowd of the street, practically floating away she moved so gracefully with her large hoop skirt. The snow started coming down harder. He glanced at the spot Altea had stood a second before, a white flower with a black center rustled in the wind, collecting snow that matched its petals.

That night when he got home, he found Shiro’s flower encyclopedia and flipped through until he found the flower that resembled it. 

“A white poppy,” Shiro read. “It symbolizes peace and consultation, since it was thought to be created by Ceres while in search of her daughter, Proserpine, to assuage her grief.” He looked over at Keith, a somber look on his face and clear questions on his lips. Keith didn’t say a word about the topic.

Holt met up with them at a nearby pub to celebrate New Year’s. Shiro had cleaned out the hearth of ashes, leaving them to start the year off fresh. They drank and laughed the night away, stumbling home at roughly four in the morning and fell into their beds  fully clothed and heavy with alcohol and sleep. This is it, Keith thought to himself as he drifted off to sleep, this is the chance to start anew. He could forget about McClain once and for all, and forget about what Altea had told him. He fell asleep with a smile on his lips and warmth in his belly, his hand stretched out in the space between their beds to hold Shiro’s pinky, like he did when they were young. 

The next morning they were evicted. With the New Year, their landlord decided it was high time he increased rent to keep up with the rising tax rates. It made their place much too pricey for them to keep any longer and thus, were booted out into the streets.

All their belongings fit into little knapsacks over their backs or tucked away in their pockets, every bit of clothing they owned were kept on their body to help stave off the bite of the cold. Their money, all their savings Keith kept hidden in his pillow, jangled in his pocket and tucked close to the faux gold pocket watch. They went to work during the day, but in the evenings they did everything to see if someone would take them in. They were turned away every time for their meager savings were not nearly enough to afford rent. They promised to work hard and get them the money, just please let them stay there. The door would be promptly slammed in their faces. 

The cold was getting colder, and it was getting harder to sleep out in the streets at night. Shiro was starting to cough. 

“I’m sorry, Shiro,” Keith whispered one night. It had been a fortnight since they were evicted from their warm home. “I should have kept all the money instead of getting you a gift this year. We wouldn’t be in this situation.”

“No, then my feet would have fallen off from the cold if it weren’t for the nice shoes. I needed them, regardless-” Shiro broke off into a coughing fit. Keith rubbed his back, hoping to soothe the pain. Shiro took in a shuddering breath, and continued after waving off Keith’s worrying hands. “Regardless, this was all just bad luck. We’ll be okay.  _ I’ll  _ be okay.”

As Shiro’s health deteriorated, Keith started pickpocketing again. Shiro could barely walk anymore, couldn’t hold down food or water. His face was so gaunt and pale, he was almost grey. He shook from the cold, and could barely speak above a whisper. One night, Keith managed to get them a tiny room in an inn, with a single bed and a drafty window, but it was a roof over their head and  fire at their feet.

He tucked Shiro into the little feather bed, wrapped him in the thin blankets, and lit a roaring fire. Shiro slept almost through the whole night, only waking occasionally to cough wetly and heave until he could breathe a little easier before drifting back to sleep. Keith sat in the hard chair by the fire until he got too tired to keep guard over Shiro and crawled into bed with him. 

Keith developed a cough not long after. Shiro couldn’t work anymore, too weakened by his sickness. The bags under his bloodshot eyes spurred Keith to keep working, keep picking pockets, keep ignoring his own lightheadedness and numb fingers, itching throat and unfocused gaze, so he can get Shiro another warm place to rest and medicine. 

Things went from bad to worst when Shiro couldn’t walk anymore. He was too weak to stand, his breathing ragged and barely lucid enough to realize it was Keith whenever he came back from work. 

“We’re going to get you somewhere warm tonight, okay? Even if I have to beg, I don’t care. You’re going to die out here like this.” Keith was wheezing. The snow was heavier than it’s been all winter. He couldn’t feel his toes. Shiro’s breath barely came out in visible puffs anymore. 

He laid at the lip of an alley, so cold and weak he couldn’t even shiver anymore. Keith felt his heart leap into his throat at the sight of Shiro laying so helplessly in the snow.  

Keith ran for it, to the nearest inn and begged them to take them in tonight. They didn’t have room. He ran to another a block away and fell to his knees, hands shaking as he held his money in his numb hands and begged for a room, a single bed, even a spot by the fire to warm up by for his sick brother. They had no more room. 

The third inn took one look at his sorry state, dirt stained cheeks and mud splattered pants, and shut the door before he could even get a word out. 

He couldn’t help but cry. He was so dehydrated, he was surprised he had enough tears to shed for his brother. 

“Well what do we have here? Sir, you’re blocking my way,” a man’s voice floated into Keith’s ears. He immediately stopped crying at the sound of the snobbish voice.

“Go around me,” he said and looked up to see the man who couldn’t walk around a man having a crisis in the middle of the night in the middle of the street. 

“No, I wanted to walk this way.” He used his leather gloved hand to tilt the brim of his silk top hat upwards, revealing eyes that gleaming with something malicious. “Go home and cry there.”

“I cry because I have no home,” Keith said. He wasn’t crying anymore, annoyance taking a center seat in his emotions at the sight of this man.

“That’s unfortunate. I’m Mr. Goodfellow, someone you’ll probably never meet again.”

“Kogane,” he said gruffly and shook the man’s extended hand. It was very warm. 

“Now,” Goodfellow’s eyes flashed with mischief. “I propose a deal. We both have something we want.”

Keith climbed to his feet. A deal? “I don’t have anything to give you, sir.”

“You do. If you give me your little pocket watch, I can give you a home for you to sleep in, with a warm bed and a roof over your head.”

Keith narrowed his eyes. How did he know about the watch? He let his hand wander to cover the part on his ribs where he knew the watch was tucked away.

“I knew you had that watch for a while. It doesn’t belong to you, and I can give it back to the rightful owner.”

He’s a faerie.

“Puck,” Keith growled. Everyone knew who Puck was, whether human or fae, and loathed the name. An ancient spirit from when time began.

“Yes?” He grinned. His smile had too many teeth, it was sinister.

“Is the place you speak of in the faerie world?”

“No.”

“Is it associated with faeries in any way?”

“Everything is. You lost your home because of some mischief gone a little too far by some associates of mine, and for that I deeply apologize.” He mocked bowed.

Keith took a step back, then another. “Will I, or my brother, be in any danger, if I gave you this watch?”

“No, not that I can foresee. But aren’t we all in a little bit of danger?”

Keith took another step back. His legs were shaking. “Did someone send you?”

“They don’t know I’m here.”

“What’s in it for you if I give you this watch?”

“I get a pretty watch and you don’t.”

Everyone warned you to never make a deal with a faerie, especially Puck. Of all the nasty fae he could have run into, it had to be him. But, Keith figured, he would take Puck any day over  _ him.  _

“Is this watch the only thing you want? Will you come back later to pick up the rest of what we owe from my brother or I?” He reached into his jacket and tugged the cool metal out. His hands shook.

“Yes. I just want the watch, and nothing but the watch, in exchange for a place for you to stay.”

He had no other choice. He was desperate, cold, and so, so  _ scared  _ that Shiro wouldn’t make it through the night. This was the only lead they had to a roof over their head. 

If they made it out of this okay, Keith promised he’d take this little fact to the grave that he struck a deal with Mr. Robin Goodfellow himself for Shiro. 

“It’s a deal,” he said. He unclipped the chain from his coat and tossed the watch to Puck. He caught it midair, his grin growing wider.

“You have my word, you will have a home to sleep in tonight.” With that, Puck’s body seemed to evaporate into the snow itself, a particularly strong gust of wind blew him away.

Keith was alone, tears frozen on his cheeks and one pocket watch short. His breaths came out in sharp, foggy puffs that burned his itching throat.  He made a mistake, this was a trap to take his watch. But a fae always delivers their promise, it just might not be what Keith expected or wanted. He couldn’t think of a way this could go wrong, but knowing the fae, they’ll twist their words somehow.

The snow started falling down harder, the wind picked up speed. A storm was coming in and he needed to get back to Shiro. He trudged back in the quickly piling up snow. The street lights were flickering. The hour was late, later than anyone should be out in the street unless they were drunk or homeless. 

Shiro was still curled up in the alley where Keith left him. Keith checked his pulse, fear making his blood rush through his ears. It was faint, but it was there.

“Will you make it through the night, Shiro?” He whispered.

Shiro barely got a grunt of a reply out, skin so cold to the touch it burned. “I don’t know.”

“I love you, Shiro.” Tears burned Keith’s eyes. He shakily gripped Shiro’s cold body, dragging himself closer and draped himself over him. He was so frail, so cold, and Keith wasn’t any better off. He could never be warm enough to make Shiro feel better. The space between them burned.

Shiro sighed.

A sob tore through Keith’s throat. Who cares about the watch, when ti anyway?

The silent snowfall was broken by the clatter of hooves and the bumping of carriage wheels approaching from down the street at an alarming speed. Keith huddled closer to Shiro, to protect him from sight. It didn’t matter, the carriage jerked to a stop in front of the alley they sat in. He peaked over his shoulder to see the carriage door being thrown open before the coach hand could get to it, and a figure hopped down the steps and into ankle deep snow.

“Mr. Kogane.” The midnight blue coat blended in with the dark sky, but contrasted sharply with the snow white gloves that adorned Mr. McClain’s hands. “Let’s get you out of here.”

Ah, Keith thought, this is was the twist to their deal. He did say he doesn’t care about where he stayed, but suddenly he very much did.

“N-no,” he bit out. His teeth were chattering too much to speak straight. 

McClain sighed. “I’m offering my home to you and your brother, Mr. Kogane. I swear on Titania herself I have no ill intentions, only to give you a place to rest and heal. Will you let me help you?”

Keith clutched Shiro’s limp body closer. “I don’t want your help, we’ll be okay.”  Shivers wracked throughout his body. His legs were numb.

“No, you won’t be if you stay another night out here. Hunk, grab his brother, I don’t think he’s doing too good and I can’t lift both of them myself.”

Warm, very warm, hands pulled Keith off of Shiro. He scrambled to keep a hold on his brother, clutching his coat with numb fingers. He groaned, begged them to stop,  _ please _ , don’t take him  _ away.  _ McClain peeled him from his limp brother and pulled him up into his arms and carried him into the carriage. He couldn’t see, eyes hazy with exhaustion. Pleads fell from his cold lips into the frozen air, left unheard by the fae who were taking them away. 

Keith was laid across the bench, his feet resting on the floor and his head in a lap. It was warm, so warm in here. His body jolted with how warm it was and violently shivered. Hot hands carded through his greasy hair, tugging off his newsboy cap, and ran soothing motions up and down his scalp. 

“Shh, it’s going to be okay. You’re brother’s still alive, and we’re taking you to get warmed up and healed. You’re going to be okay.” A silken glove wiped away stray tears from Keith’s eyes, grazing his cheeks and lingering to trace the bridge of his nose. He sighed, too tired to put up a fight. If Shiro’s okay, then he doesn’t care what happens to him.

Before he passed out on the bumpy carriage ride, head nestled in a warm lap with even warmer hands running through his hair, he thought that he’ll never tell Shiro he made a deal with a faerie to get him help.

Waking up was disorienting. He’s never, in his twenty years of life, have felt so warm and  _ comfortable.  _ It’s what he always imagined laying on a cloud on a sunny day would feel like. He didn’t even attempt to move, his head felt like it was stuffed with cotton and his limbs laden with lead. Why would he ever try to move, when his own body told him not to try?

The snow, the eviction, the watch, and Shiro laying too still on the ground sent a bolt of panic through Keith’s system. Blood rushed to his ears as he sat up quickly and launched himself from the bed. He misjudged how much bed space he had and flopped to the side instead of rolling straight to the floor. 

This is a room he would have never dreamed of even looking at, let alone sleeping in a bed as if it was his own. The bed was at least twice the size of his old one, and plush with thick blankets in the softest bedding he’s ever felt. The posters of the bed were spirals of a dark wood, draped in  burgundy curtains that were tied back in with neat, gold cords. On the nightstand next to him was a lamp, the shade painted with lovely gold flowers and dimmed low. The only other light in the room was the fire crackling in the fireplace across from him, a squishy armchair posed in front of it with its own little side table that was the same color wood as the bedframe. Windows, so tall they reached the ceiling, were shut away behind long, deep red curtains. The Persian rug, floral carpet ( _ carpet,  _ Keith thought in awe), and printed wallpaper shocked Keith with how much money this whole room oozed. 

Across the room, he spied his little notebook Shiro had given him for Christmas sitting atop a dark wood desk with a matching chair. A wardrobe next to that was propped open a crack, an inky black coat sleeve adorned in silver buttons peeped out. 

This must be a dream, he realized. He died, and now he was locked in a room that cost more money than his own life. 

He tossed the blankets off of him, the cool air of the room hitting his bare legs. He shivered and threw his legs over the side of the bed, only to realize this big, fancy bed was so high off the ground his feet didn’t even touch it. A little two-step stool sat innocently to his right. He grudgingly pulled the stool closer with his outstretched foot and climbed down the bed.

Keith’s legs wobbled dangerously when he put his full weight on them. He leaned on the bed’s poster for balance, and noticed a red velvet robe. He slipped on the heavy robe, over the absolute softest nightshirt he’s ever worn. He took a second to admire the softness of the fabric, that hung loose and passed his knees. There wasn’t a stain nor hole in sight, unlike his old one. 

He made his way over to the door, tying the robe’s sash around his waist in an attempt to keep some warmth from the bed close to him. The door was cold to the touch creaked open slowly, revealing an equally ornate hallway lined with a long Persian rug and little light fixtures on the walls. To his left were a few more doors and a staircase leading upward at the end of the hall, and to his right was a couple more doors and a staircase leading down into a wide open space. Light filtered in from there.

The staircase led him down into an entryway, adorned with marble floors and pillars and ornate potted plants. A soft tinkling sound came from the doorway to the side that led into a parlor.

The wide windows gave way to letting in the muted morning light. Duchess Altea lounged in front of the roaring fireplace on a chaise, an ornate teacup was raised to her lips. She noticed his entry and placed the cup back down on the saucer without even taking a sip.

“Good morning, Mr. Kogane, I see you’re doing well,” she said softly. Her voice was gentle, yet heavy with what must be sleep. Her hair was down and fell in loose coils around her shoulders and spilled across the arm of the chaise. Her dress was a silky, soft pink and the full skirt draped elegantly across the chair. She was the caricature of sophisticated grace and status.

“Your Grace,” he murmured, voice very rough from disuse. 

“Take a seat, breakfast should be ready shortly,” she waved to the couch beside her. “Would you like some tea?”

He nodded slowly. His head still hurt, but his throat felt like it could use some tea. 

A maid appeared seemingly out of nowhere and poured him his own dainty cup of tea that matched the set that was perched atop Altea’s lap. The maid passed him the tea, and with a nod, disappeared again. With a single, tentative sip he felt the soreness of his throat soothe, the pounding of his head calmed down, and he was able to breathe a little clearer through his nose. He chugged the rest of the tea down, ignoring the scalding heat that burned his tongue. 

“How are you feeling?” She asked. Her eyes weren’t on him, but instead on the gold teaspoon she was stirring her tea with.

“Better. A little stuffed up,” he answered. “Where’s Shiro?”

“In the room next to yours. Do you wish to see him after breakfast?”

“I would like to see him now,” Keith said. 

“I understand. He is still sleeping, so there isn’t really much to see.” She took one last sip of her tea and placed it on the side table. She rose from her seat, her soft skirt cascading down to the floor. Keith rose and followed her from the room. 

They went back upstairs and stopped in front of the door next to the one he emerged from. He pushed open the door and found himself in a similar room as his, but the colors were deep royal purple and gold. 

Shiro laid in the middle of a large, cozy bed, looking far too small and frail to be in there. Only his head peaked out from above the blanket, cheeks gaunt and eyes still laden with deep shadows, but there was a rosy hue to his cheeks. Keith ran to the side of his bed and leaned in on his elbows to examine Shiro to make sure he was actually alive.

He was breathing, in and out, slow and deep with sleep. Keith placed a hand on his forehead and sighed, feeling the warmth of life radiating from him. 

“Thank you,” Keith murmured. “For what you’ve done for us.”

She flinched. “Oh, I didn’t do anything, merely waited for you to awaken so you wouldn’t  be alone. Lance and Hunk are the ones who found you two off the side of the road, near death.”

Keith froze. Oh, yeah. “Where are they now, so I can thank them?” He asked.

“He and Hunk are running an errand at the moment, but should be back for afternoon tea. Pidge is dalying in her room, but she might come out for breakfast,” Altea said. Keith cocked his head at the first name terms she used for her associates. From what he’d seen, of McClain and this Hunk character, the three of them could be family for all he knew. 

“We don’t want to bother with such ridiculous formalities in here. In fact, when we’re not in public, you must call me Allura. People these days are so iffy with their titles, it’s ridiculous. And I, what may I call you?” Allura said.

He hesitated. Puck already got him once, who knows what Allura could do once she got his first name? Then he remembered he’d already foolishly given McClain his first name, what’s another one knowing now? “Keith. And this is Shiro.”

“A pleasure. Now, breakfast should be ready in,” she looked over at the clock on Shiro’s desk. “Now, actually. Come along, you  _ must  _ try our rhubarb jam.”

Breakfast was both amazing and overwhelming. Pidge never came down to join them, but there was some murmuring in the kitchen that might have been them sneaking some food from the cooks. The table was long and elegant, heaping with ham, eggs, bacon, fish, crumpets, fresh fruit, and the rhubarb jam Allura had told him about. She was right, it was very delicious. 

He almost cried over how good the food was, and how warm he felt. He could ignore how quiet and awkward it was between him and Allura by eating as much food as possible in as little time as possible. 

It wasn’t until he was sated and full did it hit him with what he had just done.

Allura seemed to have sensed his panic and said, “No, we don’t own you now because you ate our food. You need to eat the food in the Court, but we’re in your world right now. You’re fine, dear.”

Keith settled back into his chair, content. 

He spent the day wandering the house, which he later found out wasn’t an actual mansion like it seemed. Allura told them this was just a small townhouse they stayed in when they had business in London. Their actual estate was much larger than this.

“It’s a little cramped, don’t you think?” She had said. The front entryway could have fit the entire room he had shared with Shiro. 

He didn’t see a single servant while he wandered, nor did he run into Allura. While he wandered, he let himself slip deep into his thoughts. 

He’s a little alarmed with how startlingly human the fae are. If he didn’t know any better, he would have thought Allura was human. How he treated both Allura and McClain were awful, but a deep rooted fear drove him to run away from them, get out with Shiro and find some place else. 

He wandered back to his room around noon, shucked off his robe since he never actually changed out of his nightshirt, and crawled into the large bed. The room was cozy, and he decided he deserved a much needed nap. His body ached down to his bones, and his headache and cough were coming back after wandering around so much. 

Allura, he thought, was not human, but very humane. He’s never talked to a fae (while knowing they were fae), and he hasn’t had any harm come to him directly. Maybe he was falling under their spell already, maybe what society told him about fae were wrong.

He fell asleep, a pair blue eyes, so warm and familiar, was the last thing he thought of.

A maid woke him up some time later for afternoon tea. He arose and shrugged back on the robe, completely ignoring the wardrobe with obvious clothes meant for him, and headed down to the parlor. 

Allura was there, clad in a deep purple dress and a white floral hair pin perched from her bun. Her white, silk gloved hand already had a dainty tea cup pinched delicately between her fingers. A man with a bright orange mustache, which Keith realized who was her escort that one day, sat next to her with his own cup of tea.

“Good afternoon, Keith, come sit with us,” Allura greeted him. “Today we’re having an Earl Grey with a spruce of lavender and scones with cream and bergamot marmalade.”

Keith perched himself on one of the four dainty chairs, next to the man and facing Allura. The tall window drapes were pulled aside to let in the grey light of the afternoon, snow steadily falling down past the window. Up here, on the third floor of their townhouse, he could see the snow covered roofs and in the distance and the steel grey Thames River chugging along peacefully behind them.

“Keith, I would like you to meet my uncle, Coran. He’s a professor at Oxford.” Allura gestured daintily to the man next to her. The escort, or a professor really, sported a head of hair that matched the bright orange of his thick mustache and kind blue eyes framed by crow’s feet. His suit was a deep blue, but his cravat was a rich sky blue. A gold chain of a pocket watch twinkled at his side. 

“A pleasure to meet you, my boy,” Coran said. He had a slight lilt to his accent that was unfamiliar to Keith. He shook his outstretched hand, and regretted it immediately with how enthusiastic Coran shook it. He could probably rip his arm off.

“Coran is visiting for the week. I called him down to see if he could do a better job at educating you about fae culture than I could,” she stopped and laughed. “I was never good with children.”

“I’m  _ twenty!  _ I haven’t been a child in years,” Keith said, offended. He scooped the biggest scone off the plate delicate tower of treats and plopped it on his plate.

“And I’ve been around for one thousand and eighteen years. You’re a mere infant in my eyes,” she huffed. She placed down her tea cup and angled herself toward Coran. “Now Coran, he, much like most humans, is run by fear of the unknown. He only knows what the masses have told him and from the blown up, over exaggerated stories he’s heard through the grapevine.”

Coran licked a spot of marmalade from his bushy mustache and turned to Keith. “What would you like to know?”

“A faerie ripped a man’s tongue and eyes out not too long ago. I saw the body. Why would your kind do that?”

“Humans are capable of the same thing, they just hide it under the pretense of patriotism or for monetary gain,” Allura said, snark evident in her voice.

“Allura,” Coran said firmly. She clamped her mouth shut and turned down to stare into the little lavender buds floating in her teacup. “That must have been an Unseelie fae. Nasty little buggers, the whole lot of them.”

“Un. . . seelie?” Keith tested the word on his tongue. 

“Fae is just an umbrella term for us. We’re split into two main courts, and each court is split in half, making four courts in total. The Seelie Court, ruled by Queen Titania and King Oberon, is what we’re part of. Under them, is the respected King of the Summer Court and Queen of the Spring Court. Allura is a Duchess of the Spring Court. Lance is part of the Summer Court. And for the chaos, the murders and nasty stories you here, are mostly due to the Unseelie Court. Queen Mab is their ruler, and reigns over the Autumn and Winter Courts. Their fae are always getting into something, causing some sort of mess. They’re a greedy lot who enjoy messing around with humans in the Middle Realm. Their little games like to cost the lives of mortals and the well being of our own.

“The Seelie Court isn’t perfect, either. We still have a bunch of mischievous fae who like to go around inconveniencing humans, but they’re more along the lines of making your milk spoil or your chair collapse from under you. We’re given a bad name because of the few folk in the Unseelie Court who like to cause a lot of problems.”

“Mab is a bit of a mystery,” Allura said bitterly. “Only Queen Titania knows what she looks like, and is certainly not pleased with how she runs her Court. She’s never present for any affairs, and her fae are running amok causing havoc because she isn’t around to reign them in.”

Keith took a second to contemplate this new information, staring down into the little lavender buds of his tea. “How do I know you’re not tricking me somehow?”

“We cannot lie, Keith,” Coran said. “And what pleasure would we get from doing this for you? Taking you into our home, feeding and clothing you, healing you and your brother of your ailments so you may get back on your feet.”

“I don’t know, and I wouldn’t know. You guys are different from me, you’re fae and I’m human. What would I know?”

“We want to help you, a friend of Lance. He and Hunk came bursting through the front doors late at night, carrying you two and calling for us to get beds ready and warm water,” Allura said. Keith’s heart stopped. “We don’t carry compassion like humans do, but we want to see you thrive.”

A knock interrupted them. Allura told them to enter.

A maid slipped in and said softly. “The other human has awaken, he is asking for his brother.”

Keith sprang to his feet. “I’m on my way.” He gave Allura and Coran a curt bow and took off down the hall after the maid to his brother’s room.

Shiro was propped up on his bed, the curtains open to let the light fill the room. It was toasty in there with the fire roaring high. He turned when Keith entered, a small smile on his lips.

“Shiro!” Keith cried out and threw himself onto the bed and into his arms. “You’re alright. God, I thought you had  _ died. _ ”

“I think I did. Felt like it,” Shiro said gruffly. “Please get off me, I’m still a little dizzy.”

Keith pulled off him and plopped down in the armchair by his bed. A tray of tea and crumpets sat on the bedside table. He took a crumpet and dug right in since he left in the middle of afternoon tea.

“Where are we?” Shiro asked.

“I don’t know exactly, but we’re still in London. You can see the Thames from the east windows,” Keith said.

Shiro stared out into the tall windows for a moment, watching the snow fall slowly. “What happened, Keith?”

Keith hesitated in answering. He had the day to think of how to tell Shiro he possibly struck a deal with Puck and got them a place to stay that also happens to be the nest of a bunch of fae, but he couldn’t find an easy way around it.

“You were ill,” Keith started slowly, heart beating a hundred miles an hour. “You were so cold, and I was so scared I was going to lose you.” Panic made him talk faster. “I exchanged my watch for a place to stay, and it ended up being a house owned by faeries. They promised not to hurt us, only to aid us in our recovery.”

Shiro sat up in bed, eyes round as saucers. “You  _ what _ ? Hold on, please backtrack and tell me everything in detail.”

Keith took a deep breath and explained exactly what happened in detail. Shiro only interrupted once.

“Wait, where did you get the pocket watch? I didn’t even know you had one. Couldn’t we have sold it for money?”

“I tried, but its a fake. I wouldn’t have gotten anything from it.”

“But where did you get it?”

Keith averted his gaze, unable to look at Shiro’s stern face. “. . . Mr. McClain gave it to me.”

“So you didn’t want to sell it?” Shiro said smugly.

“I  _ couldn’t _ sell it! Moving on!” Keith cut him off and continued on. When he finished, with everything he learned at afternoon tea, Shiro’s eyes had drifted from earnestly staring at Keith and soaking everything into gazing into his left hand.

“Was that really it?” Shiro asked. His voice was so soft, Keith had to lean in to hear it. “Were we, as a species, too quick to judge? There are people out there who believe the fae can bring them good fortune. Is this what they mean?”

Keith didn’t get to answer that. A knock came from the door. Keith trudged over and opened it to find one of the maids there. They all looked alike, or maybe it was the same maid.

“Mr. McClain would like to see you in the parlor,” she said. His throat went dry.

He turned to look at Shiro. He had wanted to talk to him about this, get his opinion on all of it and maybe straighten his own thoughts. But McClain was home and waiting for him. Shiro made a shooing motion. He shut the door behind him with a quiet click and followed the maid down the hall.

“Perhaps you might want to consider changing into actual clothes today, Mr. Kogane,” the maid said. She eyed his robe and night shirt.

“I’m perfectly comfortable in this, thank you very much.” He didn’t want to owe them anymore than he does.

The maid took him back up to the parlor and opened the door for him. A click of the door shutting behind him left him and McClain alone.

He stood in front of the tall window, clad in a dark traveling suit. There was still snow stuck to his shoes and damp on the hems of his pants. His hair was plastered to the side of his face, shoulders stiff and wet. The snow came down in a heavy and silent flurry. He turned upon Keith’s entry, face flushed from the cold and eyes bright. A hesitant smile broke across his face.

“How are you?” McClain said. He didn’t try to approach him.

“Doing well,” Keith said evenly.

“Are you comfortable here?”

“Surprisingly so.”

“Do you wish to leave?”

That made Keith pause. “I would have nowhere to go.”

“I know you don’t like fae, in fact you abhor us. I can set up another location for you and your brother to heal, away from us, so you may get back on your feet and find yourself a home that may treat you better.” McClain drew himself to his full height, only a little bit taller than Keith, but taller by the heels of his shoes. 

Keith considered, but remembered what Allura and Coran had told him a bit about their kind, and how Shiro had reacted to learning how misunderstood their views of fae were. He had a chance to take a step and change that. 

“No.”

McClain jumped, startled by Keith’s firm answer. “No?”

“No. I don’t want to inconvenience you any more than we have. We’re thankful for all you’ve done and you don’t need to go any further for us.” Keith bowed his head briefly.

“Don’t thank us,” McClain said bitterly. “We don’t like to be thanked. It dismisses what we do as if it’s insignificant in your eyes, and that’s rude. Don’t thank any fae, ever. Allura, Hunk, and I are a little more tolerant to it because we know you humans like to throw that word around a lot and can’t help it.”

“Then what can I do to show my gratitude?” Keith asked.

McClain’s eyes glimmered with mischief. “For one, you may call me Lance. No one calls me Mr. McClain.”

“The maid did.”

Lance laughed. “They like to do that, no matter how many times I tell them to call me Lance. A couple call me Mr. Lance, but the rest refuse to call me anything but Mr. McClain.”

“Mr. Lance,” Keith snorted. Lance smiled genuinely.

“Please sit down, have some tea with me, Mr. Keith.”

The tea set was different from the one Allura had out, one’s with little flowers shaped like cups and darker yellow petals around the base. There were little cucumber sandwiches stacked neatly. They enjoyed it in relative silenceKeith decided to address the elephant in the room.

“I want to apologize to you for how I reacted back in December. It was awful of me to do that to you, it must have been painful.” Keith kept his eyes glued to his tea.

“It was. Church bells give me the most  _ awful  _ headaches.” Lance clanked around with his tea, adding sugar and cream. “How could you drink that plain? I need my tea sweet.”

“Sugars expensive.”

“Ah. Well, the whole incident is in the past now. No use in fretting over it now. The only thing we can do now is head into the unknown with our heads held high. Cheers.” Lance raised his teacup in mock cheers and took a gulp of scalding tea. Keith took a tasting sip of the steaming tea.

Keith caught himself examining the yellow flowers on his saucer, they swayed in the painted breeze around the edge.

“Are you interested in the china? Or the daffodils?” Lance asked. Keith jerked up to meet his earnest gaze. He sounded excited about talking of either thing.

“Oh, uh, the flowers? I don’t know the name. Shiro used to have a book and I’d ask him to tell me about the flower I pointed out.” He nervously shifted in his seat.

“Do you not know how to read?” Lance asked softly. Keith shook his head. He’s never really needed to.

“Would you like me to teach you, at least a little, so you can tell Shiro about the flowers?” He seemed earnest, a glint in his eye that wasn’t mischievous like it usually is.

“You must be busy, I wouldn’t want to take time away from you.” Keith waved him off.

“Nonsense! I insist! I want to share classics with you,” Lance said, leaning closer into the table.

“Oh, so you must have nothing to do then?” Keith asked slyly.

“Well, yes. But even if I did, I would still want to teach you to read over anything else I would need to do.”

Keith leaned away from Lance’s suddenly very close face, a flush creeping up his ears. “It’s not that important, anyway. I’ve gotten along just fine without needing to read.”

“It’s a good skill to have. We can even start right now.” Lance suddenly stood up and ran out of the room. He came back a moment later with a paper and fountain pen. “I’m going to teach you the alphabet first, and then we can move on to smaller words.”

They passed the rest of the day in the parlor, only stopping when a maid came into inform them supper was ready. The meal was less awkward now, and Keith made sure to apologize to Allura for his attitude to her from earlier. A big man was there, with a kind smile and rich eyes. He introduced himself as Hunk with a firm shake of Keith’s hand. 

There was a noticeable change to the atmosphere after the first day, as if the whole house had been holding its breath and was finally able to release a heavy sigh. Keith fell into an easy rhythm during the day, starting with lessons after breakfast with Lance in the library. The afternoons he would spend in Shiro’s room while he recovered. Shiro was getting stronger day by day. He was unable to walk very much, instead resided in his room at all times. 

Keith asked one day if there was anything he can do to help, any labor he could provide to pay back the steep debt he and Shiro owes them. She had simply waved him off and told him to make sure Shiro got better. 

It took him nearly a week of wandering around in his nightshirt and robe, refusing to even touch the garments decked with silver buttons, before Coran had physically dragged him back to his room and forced him to get changed. 

He felt stiff in these clothes. They were no different from what he usually wore, just somehow had more unnecessary pieces and was made of much finer material. Cleaner, too. Coran even wet a comb and brushed out his tangled hair, slicking it back out of his vision. 

“Are we going anywhere?” Keith asked.

“No,” Coran said curtly. “It’s just good to always be presentable. One never knows when you might have some unexpected guests.”

The coat fit him perfectly, and the pants didn’t drag across the ground at the hem like his old ones. The cravat was a deep crimson, the vest was the color of ash. The buttons, Keith noticed, were engraved with little lion faces.

“The House of Altea,” Coran explained when he noticed Keith eyeing his cuffs. “The lion is their mark.”

“Is Lance part of a fancy house like that?” Keith asked.

Coran froze. He responded slowly, as if tasting the words before he spoke. “No, he’s merely a gentleman of the Summer Court. He has standing above common folk, but he’s the bottom of the tier. And yet, he and Allura are dear friends despite his low social standing.”

Keith assumed Lance would be of higher status, due to the flamboyant way he dressed and the over the top aristocrat act he put on. Maybe it truly was all just an act, Keith decided. 

Lance nearly fell down the stairs when he saw Keith walk by in his new suit, hair shiny and clean and buttons polished to perfection. He couldn’t help but laugh at the sight of Lance clutching the banister for dear life, flushed in the face and spluttering. 

It was a full week since their arrival before Shiro was able to move around the house on his own. He came up for afternoon tea, still a tad grey in the face, but much more lively than Keith had seen him in a long time. 

That day, the mysterious Pidge joined them, too. Keith realized when coming into the parlor that Pidge was the woman who mourned. It was her brother’s funeral he had rudely stepped into. He gave a curt bow to her and introduced himself formally. She didn’t say a word. He didn’t even think she acknowledged him at all, her face was obscured by the black veil and made it impossible to tell what she was feeling. Then again, that was the point of the mourning veil.

Tea wasn’t as awful as Keith imagined it would be with Pidge in full mourning bombazine and crape sitting like a looming shadow at the table. The excitement of seeing Shiro up and about brought a welcoming distraction from the heavy cloud hovering above her end of the table.

Shiro wore a suit similar to Keith’s with a white cravat and the sleeve pinned up neatly over his amputated arm instead of the usual knot. His hair was combed, and although weak, he smiled brightly. He was radiant.

He sat down next to Keith and spoke to Allura who sat across from him. Pidge was not far from her, speaking softly to Hunk. Next to him, she was comically small. Hunk leaned in close, listening intently to whatever she had to say.

Lance sat on the other side of Keith, stirring his tea with a gold spoon and hummed a tune he couldn’t recognize. Lance caught him staring and flashed him a smile.

“We usually have afternoon tea only in the parlor,” Keith overheard Allura explain to Shiro. “But it gets a little stuffy in here, especially with all of us. On any day that’s not wet, I do enjoy sitting out in the garden.”

“This place has a garden?” Shiro perked up.

“A little one, but this is just one of my townhouses,” Allura said. “We stay here when we have business in the city, or wish to get away a bit. Our more permanent residence is a house in the countryside not far from London, which we like to call the Castle of Lions. It’s true name is Gatesherds, but the Castle of Lions is much more charming, don’t you think?” She paused to let Shiro answer, who nodded slowly. “We do have a garden there. It’s quite lovely in the spring and summer when all the flowers are blooming. In comparison, the townhouse is only a fraction of the size of the estate.”

“Where’s Coran?” Lance asked. Keith did a double take of the lavish room and true to his word, Coran wasn’t with them.

“He’s out running an errand today,” Allura said. “I have another apartment on the other side of the Thames I think would be able to accomodate you two.”

“Wait, what?” Shiro frowned.

“Oh! I don’t mean to offend you two!” Allura almost dropped her teacup. “You’re lovely guests, and much fun to talk to, but we’ll be leaving soon and taking our maids with us and can’t be leaving you here all alone. Coran is looking into setting up the apartment for you two so you may continue to live and work in the city. He also has some connections with people who can give you two proper jobs so you may save up and get back on your feet again.”

“I-Allura,” Shiro said. His voice cracked. “You don’t have to do all that. We’re more than grateful for you to take us in during our hour of need, and nursed me back to health. You’ve gone above and beyond anything anyone has ever done for us, and for that I’m truly-”

Keith slapped his hand over Shiro’s mouth. “Glad to be here, happy for you to do such a thing for us when there’s no way we could ever repay you.”

“Yes there is,” Lance said. Mirth sparkled in his eyes. “Live. Stop surviving, and start living your lives like you deserve.”

Shiro’s eyes welled up in tears. Keith felt his throat close up. Before either of them could break down, a maid came in with an announcement that put the touching moment on hold.

“A guest has arrived and wishes to have an audience with you, ma’am,” the maid said with a deep bow to Allura.

“Who is the guest?” She asked.

“Prince Lotor, ma’am.”

An inhuman squeal left her mouth. She practically dropped her cup and saucer onto the table and climbed to her feet, an arduous task due to the sheer volume of her lovely, deep red skirt. “Have him waiting for me in the drawing room. I will be there shortly.” The maid bowed and left.

“Oh Lance, how do I look? Is my hair okay?” Allura fussed with her reflection in the silver teapot. There wasn’t a curl out of place. She hoisted the bodice of her corset to adjust her breasts and fluffed the details on her skirt. 

“Fine,” Lance said shortly. “You look good as always.”

“Good,” Allura said. She smiled bright and sighed dreamily. “I knew he’d come this week, I just didn’t think this soon. Oh, this makes me so happy!”

She let out a loud giggle, pulling a red lace fan from the folds of her dress and and unfurling it in front of her face before she hustle out of the parlor. A moment later, Lance sighed, placing his own teacup down and following suit.

Afternoon tea ended not long after their exit. Keith, with Shiro now being out of bed, decided to show him around the large townhouse. Shiro walked slow behind Keith, letting him take him down the ornate halls and through the useless rooms. They got caught up in the library; though small, it was jammed with books from the floor to the ceiling. Keith had to bodily pull him away and promised to return after the unofficial tour.

Somehow, they ended up by the drawing room. Keith didn’t want to admit he was pretty curious about this Prince Lotor character, but Shiro was with him and he refused to stoop to, well, snooping with him around.

“Let’s eavesdrop,” Shiro suggested. Keith did a double take, worrying that Shiro might still be ill.

Shiro read the alarm on Keith’s face and waved him off. “How often are you in the presence of a  _ prince?  _ At least lets stand by the door and listen.”

They didn’t need to strain hard to hear. Lance’s clipped tone echoed through the wood of the door. 

“-not going back, especially with  _ you,”  _ Lance spat, his voice laced in poison.

“It’s for the good of the Court,” an unfamiliar, rich voice chimed in. He was practically pleading. “Don’t you love your family, Lasyndre?”

“Do  _ not  _ call me that and do  _ not  _ bring my family into this.” Lance’s voice rose, shaking in the corners. “I don’t want you of all people reigning over us- them.”

Allura cut in, voice soothing like water. “Lotor, I can do it. But you need to give me time, gain permission from my Queen and King.”

“We don’t have  _ time _ , Allura,” Lotor said. “With Mab’s absence, it’s all falling apart at the seams. We need someone to step up. I can do it, but I need you, Lasyndre.”

“And I said  _ no.  _ Now get out of my house.” A thunk, the scraping of a chair, followed by the harsh click of shoes on wooden floors approaching the door had Keith and Shiro reeling back onto the floor. Too late, the doors were thrown open and Keith was kneeling in front of Lance, of all people.

Lance blinked, as if to get rid of a lingering fog. “Keith? Shiro? Weren’t you lot supposed to be at tea right now?”

“Tea’s over?” Shiro said awkwardly. His face was beet red from getting caught, but Keith felt he was in a similar state.

“And who are they?” The smooth voice, no longer blocked by the wood door, melted through the air. A man sitting by the fire rose and came to see them at the door.

He was a tall man, taller than Shiro even, with shocking white hair that fell into a curtain around his chin. His eyes were a bright hazel, almost gold in the firelight, and bore holes into Keith’s appearance. His suit was immaculate, a pearl pin glinted in the center of his deep purple tie. He held himself high with his chin tilted back, looking at everyone from down his nose. Regardless of his poshness, he was very gorgeous. With sharp cheekbones, a gorgeous jawline, and a sloped brow that reminded Keith of some Greek god.

“Keith and Shiro, honored guests of ours,” Lance said cooly. He shifted, standing a bit between them and Lotor. 

Lotor arched a perfect brow. “Guests? They’re mere mortals. What right do they have to be clothed and fed by fae hands?”

Allura rose from her seat. “They’re friends, Lotor. Please, ignore them. They mean us no harm.”

Lotor scrutinized Keith and Shiro, letting his eyes linger on Shiro’s folded sleeve before moving onto examine Keith. An unrecognizable emotion flashed across his face before it smoothed over.

“Then I shall take my leave. Please, consider my offer. You would be foolish to turn it down.” With a sharp click of his heel, Lotor turned and left, striding gracefully down the hall like he was sailing through the air more than walking.

“He’s a prick,” Lance spat.

“Oh calm down, Lance,” Allura sighed. She placed a hand on his shoulder, watching Lotor turn the corner and disappear. “He’s trying to fix everything.”

“I don’t trust him.”

“Who is he, exactly?” Shiro asked slowly.

“He’s Prince Lotor, son of King Zarkon of the Autumn Court, a part of the Unseelie Court,” Allura explained.

“Queen Mab disappears a lot without warning, the queen of the Unseelie Court, you know?” Lance continued. “But her most recent disappearance is the longest yet, her Court’s growing restless.”

“You’ve probably seen it leaking into London. There’s been more attacks, faerie ring sightings, milk spoiling, the works. They’re restless without their queen.”

“How long has she been gone?” Keith asked.

“Oh, a couple decades now,” Lance said. “As Allura said, it’s not unusual for her to disappear for extended periods of time, but that’s usually just a few years. Thirty-seven is a new record for her.”

“Court politics aside, Lotor wants to use this as a chance to ascend and create a new era for the Unseelie Court, disassociate it with all the bad luck and dark omens,” Allura said. She sighed, staring off where Lotor had turned the corner. “He’s doing it for the sake of peace between the Seelie and Unseelie Courts.”

“He wants to rise in power, steal the throne for himself and use it for his evil plans,” Lance said acidly.

“Stop that, he’s been nothing but kind to us! He’s sacrificed so much to get where he is in order to help us,” Allura snapped at Lance. He flinched back at her sharp tone. “He asked Lance first to wed him, but he refuses to do so. I offered my own hand in marriage, but we’re from two different fractures and would need our ruling Queens’ permissions to do so. With Mab missing, that’s near impossible.”

“Why would you want to marry a man like  _ him,”  _ Lance snarled. Keith’s felt his heart clench, never had he heard Lance speak in such a dangerous tone before. Lance took notice of Keith and Shiro’s matching startled expressions and softened, the twist in his face smoothed over but his tone was still like a frostbite. “He’s deceitful, prideful, rude, narcissistic. I don’t want anything to do with the Unseelie Court.”

“You two are peas in a pod,” Allura said coolly.

That seemed to snap something in Lance. His nostrils flared, jaw clenching in suppressed anger. He spun on his heel, grabbing Keith’s arm, and dragged him down the hall at a brisk pace.

“Let’s go, Keith. I need some air and I want you with me,” Lance said, voice practically a growl.

“It’s awfully cold for that, isn’t it?” Keith glanced out a passing window, covered in sheets of ice. “Can’t we get some air in the library?”

“No, I got an idea of where we can go.” Lance let go of his arm once they were a safe distance from the drawing room, but kept up the fast pace. “Get your coat and meet me in the foyer.”

Keith hesitated, unsure whether to follow through. He hasn’t left the townhouse since he and Shiro were taken in. The idea of an adventure set Keith’s blood alight. The townhouse, though large, was feeling like a cage more everyday being cooped up in the ornate walls and tall windows. 

He mentally slapped himself. Why was he hesitating to go do something clearly reckless? This wasn’t the Keith he knows.

Lance met him down in the foyer barely five minutes later, a heavy cloak draped over his shoulders and a silk hat atop his head and fixing leather gloves over his hands. Keith had found a cloak similar to Lance’s in his wardrobe, and the gloves Lance had gifted him, now cleaned, in a drawer. His old paperboy hat was missing, but he didn’t want to wear one of those silly tall hats. He has a whole head of hair that kept him warm, he would be fine.

The street outside was grey, heavy with snow and slick with ice and cold biting into his bare cheeks.  Not a soul was in sight among the line of matching townhouses that lined the street. A single carriage was already prepared and waiting for them when they stepped down the stone steps. Keith turned, walking backward toward the carriage to get a good look at the townhouse he came out of. Coran was right, it did look a lot smaller on the outside, but still far larger than anything Keith had ever dreamed of living in. 

The carriage was cozy, seats plush and the cold held at bay with the velvet curtains. He looked around, wondering where the source of heat came from. 

Lance was sitting, knees crossed and head staring down at his clasped hands.

“I’m sorry for dragging you out of the warm house over my silly temper,” Lance murmured after a little while into their ride. “You have a way of making me feel better.”

“Do you look upon me and think, ‘At least I’m not that unfortunate’?” Keith snickered.

Lance jumped, head snapping back to stare wide eyed at Keith. “ _ Heavens _ no. You’re easy to be around, I don’t feel like I need to put on a show for you. You’re brutally honest, and kind despite your harsh exterior. I like that.”

Keith felt himself flush at the compliment. “You’re sweet, Mr. McClain. You never need to be this kind to me. But you did, and you saved my brother and I. What did Allura say? You’re not compassionate?”

“We don’t feel compassion, I don’t pity humans for how they live, nor sympathetic toward your troubles. But you? I only wish to see you flourish, you’re down at the bottom and you don’t belong there.”

“Where would I belong, if it were up to you?”

Lance’s blue, blue eyes sparkled. “Up at the top, eating like a king, clothed in the richest silks, and sleep in the most luxurious bed. You look out of place among the crowd of commoners, and I want to do what I can to raise you up to where you belong.”

Keith arched a brow. “And what makes me so different from the rest of the humans? Am I prettier?”

He was joking, but Lance quickly turned away, cheeks flushed red. “Perhaps. But you have a look in your eye that reminds me of a faerie, like you don’t bumble about like the rest of the humans. You’re here for a purpose.”

“I don’t feel like I have a purpose, I do odd jobs to make money so I can feed us. I live everyday as it comes to me.”

“As you should, only the richest lives with a schedule, and only the lowest fear their past. You look forward, not behind you.”

The carriage jerked to a stop, sending Keith forward and Lance bouncing against the back of his seat. 

“Looks like we’re here,” Lance noted. The coach hand pulled the door open and stepped aside to let Keith and Lance out. It was strange being on this end, the one being served instead of serving, Keith thought. 

“Where are we?” Keith asked. It was just another residential street, this one middle class. 

“There’s a faerie ring around here, I want to go someplace warm and this one in particular leads us right to where I’m thinking,” Lance explained, already making his way around the side of a house.

Keith’s blood ran cold. Every rule drilled into his head as long as he can remember all lead up to the number one rule when dealing with fae.  _ Don’t step into a faerie ring.  _

“I wish to go back,” Keith said, trying to keep the tremor from his voice. Unspeakable horrors laid beyond the faerie rings, where the fae would lead an unsuspected soul into their realm and trap them there forever. He couldn’t follow Lance in.

“You will come back,” Lance spoke evenly. “It’s nowhere near a full moon, nor an important fae holiday. This ring is out of the way from the Courts, and you will not eat or drink a single drop of faerie food. You will come back out of the faerie ring, unharmed. I promise, that you will be at supper tonight.”

Keith hesitated. Faeries can’t lie, and he has yet found a reason to doubt Lance. At this point, he figured, what has he got to lose?

He took Lance’s hand and let him guide Keith to a little ring of mushrooms peeking out of the snow, hidden behind an old shed. It was barely large enough for the two of them to stand in. 

Lance leaned in and whispered into Keith’s ear, warm breath tickling the hairs that curled around his jaw and earlobe. “Close your eyes, and whatever you do, don’t let go of my hand.”

This is it, Keith thought, this is how I die.

They stepped into the ring, Keith felt nothing at first, and then it was as if they were falling, the air rushing up around them, but their feet were firmly planted on the ground. Keith clutched Lance’s hand tight, squeezed his eyes shut, and tried not to scream. The hard wind flapped their coats around them, Keith felt his collars smack his face and his hair lift up, dragged upward due to the force of the wind. The air warmed around them, the icy chill dissipating to a gentle warmth.

Then it stopped as quickly as it started. Keith sucked in a harsh breath, having it been stolen from their. . . fall? The air was considerable warmer, the ground no longer uneven with snow.

A soft chuckle from Lance registered in his ears. “You can open your eyes now.”

Keith peeled his eyes open, crusted shut with dried tears that had been forced from his eyes from the sheer force of the wind. It was bright, brighter than he’d seen since the middle of summer. He blinked away the bright spots, raising his hand to shield his eyes from the sun.

The sun? 

His vision came into focus, and was met with a field of golden yellow. The warmth of the sun, the puff, white clouds that graced the brilliant blue horizon, and the endless field of yellow flowers swaying in the gentle breeze made Keith feel like he stepped into a painting. 

“This-this is the fae world?” Keith asked, voice soft in awe. He took in the flowers, their little cup shapes lined with pointy little petals, long green leaves with delicate steps to hold them high. They looks like they were reaching for the sun to catch its golden rays, giving it that brilliant hue. 

“This is on the outskirts of the Seelie Court, one of the many fields around here. This one is one of my favorites,” Lance explained. He was shedding his heavy cloak and gloves, the air too warm to be in wool.

“What flowers are these?” Keith shed his own cloak and gloves, even taking off his coat and vest, rolling up his sleeves and loosening his tie.

“Daffodils, or narcissist. Named after the Greek hunter, Narcissus, who fell in love with his own reflection and commited suicide due to the unrequited love. His body withered away into this flower, the daffodil. Pretty interesting, huh?” Lance said. He followed Keith in shedding his coat and vest. The warmth, not unbearable, but pleasantly warm that left Keith wanting to feel it all over his skin. He hadn’t felt like this in months. 

Keith hummed in response to Lance’s explanation, slightly impressed as his knowledge over the lore. He took a step out and waded through the yellow flowers. 

“There’s a lot that bloom out over in the Lake District, which inspired Wordsworth to write his poem about them and how happy it makes him,” Lance said. He followed Keith out into the field. “I can show it to you when we get back later.”

“I would like that,” Keith said, only half paying attention. He felt bad, but he was too busy taking in the sights. It was gorgeous, not a building in sight. In the distance, he could see a line of emerald trees. In another direction, he spotted the dazzling surface of a lake, blinding Keith when he looked at it for too long. He blinked to get rid of the spots in his vision and looked back at the field of daffodils.

“We’re in the Spring Court, technically,” Lance continued. “My domain is in the summer court, but this is such a lovely place.”

“I’ve never left the city,” Keith said finally. “I was born behind a factory, my mother passed away and left my dad to raise Shiro and I until he died when I was six during a fire. A year later, Shiro lost his arm in a factory accident, and I became a chimney sweeper at seven to help support us. I never had a reason to leave the city, never thought I would see outside the gray buildings and smog.” He felt vulnerable standing in this field of daffodils, like the gold had hypnotized him to unlock his heart and open the door a crack. 

“We technically never left London, we’re in a whole other realm.” Lance came up behind Keith and placed a hand on his arm, staring out at whatever Keith was staring at. “But, when the snow melts, let me take you to the country. Let me show you the forests and hills and lakes. You can breath fresh air, and lay on a grassy hill looking up at the sky.”

“When I pick up work again, I won’t be able to take a vacation.” The truth, that this luxury will end, hurt. “I need to go back to keeping Shiro and I afloat.”

“Between you and me, Coran might have a surprise for the both of you.”

Keith turned to see Lance’s face, a sly smile graces his cheeks and his eyes glittered mischievously. In the sunlight, Keith realized he’d never seen Lance in the sun before, and he was practically glowing. Hues of gold and red shined on his dark hair, his eyes were the brightest blue Keith has ever seen, his pupils pinpricks due in the bright light and only made the blue of his eyes more obvious, so much deeper. He could see the sunlight reflecting off his eyelashes, highlighting the smatter of freckles that kissed the bridge of his nose and the heights of his cheekbones. Keith was absolutely smitten. 

“Preparations for the new apartment for you two is almost ready, give it a fortnight or so,” Lance said, doing his best to suppress the smile. “But Coran also found a job for Shiro. Due to his ability to read and write pretty fluently, Coran was able to get him an interview as a clerk not far from where your apartment is. Coran has an acquaintance at the university who has a friend who runs the office, and is willing to give him a shot.”

Keith’s eyes widened. “A  _ clerk?”  _ They made a lot of money, not quite filthy rich standards like a member of the court, but held a cozy spot in the middle class. 

Lance nodded. “Unfortunately, there’s not much work available for you. But we’re keeping an eye out for something with higher pay for you to do.”

“Is that the reason you’ve been trying to teach me to read and write?” Keith asked.

“Mostly, it’s a handy thing to know. Also I want to share my books with you.” Lance shrugged and turned away. 

“You’ve done so much for us,” Keith said. “There has to be something you want from me, from us.”

Lance hummed. “I can’t think of anything, but when I do I’ll tell you.”

“Hm, keep it reasonable, would you? I do enjoy having my soul and all my body parts attached.”

“Oh, only your body?” Lance stepped close to Keith, breath fanned across his cheeks. Despite the warmth of the air, it was cool. A shiver of goosebumps ran down Keith’s skin.

“I don’t own a penny to my name, only my hands to craft and back to break.” He was so close, Keith didn’t need to raise his voice.

“What about this?” Before he realized it, Lance had slipped the crimson cravat out of its loose knot around Keith’s neck, tugged it off of him and nearly tripped over his feet to get away from Keith. He swatted at Lance to get his cravat back, missing by millimeters.

“Give that  _ back _ ! It’s not even mine to get dirty, you ratbag.” Keith lunged, only for Lance to dance out of the way.

“Come and get me!” Lance took off, winding through the daffodils with laughter bubbling on his lips. Keith followed suit, reaching for his loose shirt tails and his billowing sleeves to grab hold of  _ something  _ to slow him down. Lance would pull ahead, turn and wave the cravat like it was a victory flag. 

Keith’s heart swelled, filling with a warmth he hasn’t felt since before his father died. Unperturbed joy, a gentle, warm breeze that filled his lungs like the sweetest honey and drizzled into his blood. He felt light on his feet, the spring breeze pulling through his hair like a lover’s stray fingers. Crisp, golden laughter was pulled from his chest, springing free into the sunlit air and bounced off the little yellow cups. 

For a moment, the sun circled Lance’s head like a golden halo. It illuminated his smile, the breeze tugged at his loose shirt, one of his suspenders was slipping off his shoulder from where Keith had grabbed at it. He was so relaxed and happy, Keith felt a little bit like he wanted to stay with Lance for a long, long time. 

A large leap from Keith sent him barreling into Lance. He hadn’t expected Keith’s entire body to slam into his, losing his balance and sending them careening down a hill. Keith  _ might  _ have screamed. Lance definitely did. 

For a dizzying moment, they laid tangled at the base of the hill. Keith’s foot was in something cold, seeping into his socks and the hem of his pants. He jerked his leg up and shook off whatever was on him. The cold something splattered on his cheek.

“Ew, what?” Keith untangled himself from Lance and sat up.

They were at the edge of the daffodil field, where the flowers ended and the line of an icy forest looming over them began. The sky above was cut in a line directly above the forest, half the sky the blue that matched Lance’s eyes and dotted with puffy clouds, the other half a steel grey that snowed softly atop the trees draped in snow and ice. 

Lance sat up and took a sharp inhale. Their breaths came out in cloudy puffs, the air dropping from the gentle warmth to a cold much like London’s right now. 

“What is that?” Keith asked, standing up and brushing the dirt from his clothes. He got his cravat back in the fall, but it didn’t matter. It was stained in dirt and pollen.

“The border between the two Courts. This is the Unseelie Court’s territory, the Winter Court to be exact,” Lance said. He climbed to his feet, dusting the dirt and pollen from his clothes, too. There was a deep stain of mud across his elbow that would take some work to get out. “It’s close to the border, so not many fae from either sides come here often. No Unseelie faerie should bother us- where are you going?”

“To take a look.” Keith  took a tentative step onto the iced over dirt, where it transitioned from cold mud, to ice, to plush snow. “It’s not every day I get to see the fae world and live to tell the tale.”

“And you probably  _ won’t  _ if some malevolent Unseelie faerie sees you!” Lance reached for Keith’s arm to tug him back. Keith jerked away, picking up the pace and entering the trees dripping in icicles and bowed under the snow. 

“It’s so clean,” Keith sighed softly. The cold felt near unbearable in just his shirt and pants, but curiosity allowed him to ignore the gnawing feeling to his skin. “In London, the snow is so dirty. The moment it touches down, the smog and mud and everyone’s dirty foot taints it. I know it’s supposed to be white, but I’ve never seen truly white snow before.”

“And now you have, let’s turn around and go back.” Lance made a futile attempt to tug Keith back by his sleeve, hands shaking.

“Just a moment, I want to go a little bit deeper,” Keith said. Lance looped his arm through Keith’s pulling him close. Keith side eyed him, noting the snow caught in his hair and his shoulders. His eyes were roving all over, keeping an eye out for something. 

“Okay, but when I say we have to go, we leave. Capiche?”

“C-capeace?” Keith stuttered.

“Close enough.” Lance shrugged.

Keith sighed, watching his breath fog up around him before disappearing into the cold air. The daffodil field was beautiful, but this was a different kind of beautiful he thought he would never see. The icicles and snow, draping the trees like a gorgeous blanket, sparkling in the dim lighting. The snow was untouched, smooth and looked oh so soft. Everything was silent, not a single bird chirped or a breeze played with the undisturbed snow. It was as if time stopped in this little cold bubble.

“Stop,” Lance gasped. “Someone’s coming.”

They were too far away from the border to run to it, the daffodils only a golden haze between the trees behind them. A breeze brushed by, pushing the looser snow up back into the air and let it swirl around them. Lance tugged Keith around and ducked under a large tree, the drooping branches made a canopy over them.

Up above on top of a slope, an obvious pathway was carved into the side of a hill. Not a sound was made, but Lance kept his eyes trained on the path. They both held their breaths, the breeze picking up speed, whipping their hair and clothes around them. Keith shielded his eyes from the snow being blown into his face. 

Then it stopped all at once. Keith could hear movement in the snow from the bath, of many people walking through it. A light wound between Keith’s fingers. 

Levitating in the air, following the path around and weaving back through the trees, were little spheres of golden light that bumbled through the air and illuminated the walkway. They were small, small enough to fit in the palm of Keith’s hand. On the path, was a faerie procession. They weren’t there a moment ago, and Keith did not see them arrive; one moment there was nothing and the next was a whole parade of faeries emerged from the trees.

They came in all shapes and sizes, the largest being the size of a carriage, a hulking grey figure draped in brown furs, and the smallest being little flecks of blue and silver light that sparkled and danced through the crowd. Little frog-like creatures, sleek and silver and the size of a small child, bounced around their knees. The most human looking faeries were ethereal. The palest being the same shade of icy white as the snow, the darkest a deep ebony like the night sky. Blues and purples, rich indigos and lavender. They were draped in robes of silver, white, the palest blues, the softest purples, and the deepest blacks; Furs, gossamer chiffons, the thickest wool, and the thinnest cotton.

One faerie in particular, with deep purple fur and large, bat-like ears stood towering over the procession, draped in a black metal armor with a deep indigo cape billowing out behind him. His left arm was made of ice with a red core, and his right eye was an eye patch with a bright red jewel that twinkled in the grey light. He turned and looked directly at Keith’s and Lance’s hiding spot, his remaining golden eye zeroing in on their spot. Keith let out a gasp at his grisly sight, but was muffled by Lance’s hand. Lance made a shushing motion, pulling him closer to the tree bark. The faerie looked away and continued forward. Lance took his hand off Keith’s mouth.

Another faerie caught Keith’s eye. A woman slender and beautiful, and unlike the others around her, was draped in reds and golds. Her robes were sewn in straight lines, falling heavily into the snow. She didn’t wear the robes and gowns like the others, but hers draped in a style that Keith thought resembled one of the east Asian countries. Her hair was a deep black, decorated in gold ornaments and had six gold pins sticking out of loops of her hair; the rest of her long hair was pulled into a long ponytail that flowed behind her. Her lower lip was painted red, paralleling the streaks of red at the corners of her eyes and the points tracing from her jaw and tapered up into her cheeks. Interesting gold leaves, patterns depicting nature of streams, trees, graceful birds, and sharp flowers in reds, yellows, oranges, golds, and the slightest touch of indigo decorated her layers and layers of clothes. The shawl draped around her elbows was lined in a fringe that looked like it had been spun by gold. She stuck out in her warm colors, her heavy silks next to the others’ furs and wool was like a beacon to Keith.

Lance noticed who Keith was staring at, following his gaze to rest on the lady. “She doesn’t belong here, she must be visiting. She’s from the Winter Court’s sister, the Autumn Court.” A couple others draped in warm colors followed her, an entourage of sorts.  

The Autumn faerie, like the big purple man before her, seemed to sense Keith’s eyes on her and turned to look toward their hiding spot. From this distance, Keith could see her eyes were vaguely nostalgic. 

Unlike the purple man, she found them. She made eye contact with Keith, widening a fraction before all trace of emotion was wiped from her face. Something sharp stung Keith’s ears, like the biting cold was finally taking a toll on his human skin. She looked away, facing forward and continued on. Keith watched her go, disappear around the bend of trees. The procession ended shortly after, the lights following along with them. A wind came by, as if to blow away their presence.

They waited a moment before clambering out from their hiding spot.

“We should go, the others might be getting worried,” Lance said stiffly. 

Keith nodded and followed Lance out of the Winter Court and up the hill of daffodils they rolled down. Keith was shivering still from the cold, the warm sun doing an adamant job in bringing the feeling back to his fingers, nose, and toes.  

Their clothes were where they left them, haphazardly thrown to the ground. Keith shook the  pollen from them before slipping them back on. 

“How do we get back?” Keith asked.

“The same way we came in.” Lance looped his arms through Keith’s and pulled him close. “Close your eyes.”

It was the same rushed feeling like when they came in, but reversed. The wind blowing downward like they were being shot out of a tube. The air pressure made a loud popping sound in Keith’s ears. As suddenly as the wind started, once again, it stopped. Cold brushed his cheeks and bit into his nose and exposed ears, as the spring warmth reminded Keith just how cold the winter is.

They made it back to the house, the sky already pitch black and the street lanterns aglow in the softly falling snow. It was well after supper by the time they trudged through the front door, wiping snow from their clothes and removing their sodden socks. Hunk greeted them at the foyer, pulling Lance into a warm hug that engulfed his whole body.

“Lotor is long gone, and Allura is sorry for what she said,” Hunk murmured. “She wishes to make it up to you tonight.”

Lancer shrugged out of Hunk’s arms and headed toward the dining room. “Not tonight, I’m still upset with her. Tell her tomorrow I might.”

Keith followed Lance into the dining room, nodding at Hunk as he passed by. Hunk gave him a warm smile and a gentle pat on his back before he turned on his heel and headed up the staircase.

Lance and Keith ate dinner, remnants left over for them, quietly at the long table. The curtains were drawn in an attempt to keep the cold at bay, a fire roared softly in the hearth and was used as the main source of light in the room. 

“I’m glad you came with me today,” Lance confessed. “It cleared my head.”

“Oh I’m, uh, glad I could help,” Keith said around a mouthful of corned beef. He’ll never get over eating this good. 

Lance put down his fork and leaned into the table, placing his chin on his hand and gazed at Keith. “You make things easier, Keith. I can breathe around you. You’re not stifling, coated in dyes and draped in jewels like a facade.”

“I don’t have money for that kind of stuff.” Keith swallowed his bite of meat and dove into his soup. He was  _ starving  _ after running around so much. “How can I hide behind a facade when I can’t even afford one?”

Lance laughed, outright and bubbling. “True, but it makes you genuine. I don’t feel the need to drape myself in formalities around you.”

“Hm, I don’ wan’ you doo ei’er,” Keith said around bites of bread.

“At least a little table manners would be nice.” Lance scrunched up his nose in disgust. It was cute, Keith thought. 

After dinner they parted for bed. Lance walked Keith up to his room and once at the door, Lance took Keith’s hand and placed the softest kiss on his knuckle. 

“Don’t treat me like a woman, Mr. McClain,” Keith berated, tugging his hand away.

“Then would you kiss mine, Mr. Kogane? It’s only right after an evening out like that.” Lance extended his own hand, cool to the touch and softer than any woman’s hand could be. Keith placed a gentle kiss on his knuckle, then made an over exaggerated bow. They wished each other goodnight, Keith closing the door behind him and listening to Lance’s footsteps disappear down the hall.

Sleep came all too easily for Keith. It was so easy now, with a plush, warm bed and knowing that him and Shiro will be okay. 

Keith found himself surrounded by autumn. It was a dream, but Keith floundered. He’d never been in a dream with so much clarity before. 

He was laid on his back, on a bed of red and gold leaves, surrounded by tall maple trees. The sky beyond the branches was a soft gold. He watched the leaves fall slowly around him like the snow back in London. He sat up to take in his surroundings.

The forest went on in every direction, no clear path nor a definite way out. 

Suddenly, the leaves stopped falling, or really, they froze in midair as time itself stopped. He held a bated breath, waiting. A moment passed of complete stillness until they started rushing upward, the leaves on the ground blowing back up into the air. It was like the wind tunnel he and Lance had gone through that day into the Spring Court. 

He spotted a figure through the rising leaves, sitting under a red tree. Keith climbed to his feet, pushing through the scattered leaves toward them. As he got closer, he realized who it was and slowed to a stop.

It was the Autumn fae from the previous day. Her layered robes pooled around her, the gold thread glinting against the red silks. Her back was to him and head tilted down to look at something in her hands.

A crack, followed by heavy footsteps had her jerk her head up to the source of sound. Keith froze, watching a man emerge from the gold and red trees to stand in front of her.

They were speaking, Keith couldn’t hear them. The man’s long coat brushed the top of his knees, a broken leaf was caught in his black hair. 

“Father?” Keith jolted in recognition, noticing the scar through the man’s heavy brows and the stubble that never went away, no matter how much he shaved. 

Light and sound rushed around him, the scene shifted from one to another, memories of his brief childhood flashed before him. It stopped, only for a second longer, on a moment long, long ago. A delicate hand held his own, an elegant ring glittering on her pinky. His hands were so small holding her thumb was more than enough. 

Memories shifted, blurring together in a dizzying effect. It stopped, leaving Keith back in the autumn forest. 

The faerie stood in front of him, his father gone. She was half a head taller than him, the long gold earrings glinted from her pointed ears. 

She raised her hand, wide sleeves of her robes falling away to reveal a pendant on a long cord dangling from her hand. It was a bronze circle, with a seven pointed star glinting on the middle. Little red stones winked from each of the points. Keith held out his hand and let her place the pendant in his palm, cord pooling around the stone and dangling from his fingers.

Keith awoke the next morning, wound up and reeling from the vibrancy of his dream. He briefly wondered if it was bad luck to dream about faeries. His left hand felt cramped, something hard digging into his palm. 

He sat up and opened his hand, finding the bronze pendant sitting warm in his hand. 

“God, this faerie business is weird,” Keith murmured sleepily to himself. He ended up putting the cord around his neck, the warm pendant sat snugly atop his breast. He wondered briefly, what his father had to do with the faerie courts, or if the faerie had used his memories to get to him. It was neither good luck nor bad luck to dream of faeries, Keith thought, it was a sign of change. 

Keith remained muted that day, through breakfast and afternoon tea. He kept to himself, deep in thought about what that could mean. Lance tried to pull him from his stupor, but it was ultimately Coran who found him staring out a snowy window.

“You seem a little up in the sky today, m’boy,” Coran observed, clapping a warm hand to Keith’s back. 

“Coran, what does a seven pointed star mean?” Keith asked.

“That’s the faerie star, each point represents the planets and its elements,” Coran explained. “It’s a focal point of fae magick, a unity of the elements and the moon and sun. Its main purpose is connectivity, so we engrave them on items and use them as portable faerie rings, except we can only go where the star was made.”

Keith hummed, hand crept up to his chest to place a tentative finger over where the pendant sat under his shirt. The faerie had been trying to reach him, wanting to go to that location.

“Speaking of going somewhere, tonight we will all be attending a dinner an opera and wish for you to join us,” Coran interrupted his train of thoughts.

“Hm? Oh, I guess I can come. Will Shiro be coming, too?” Keith asked.

“Of course! Now go get ready, Allura and Lance picked out a nice suit for you to wear.” Coran ushered him back down the hall toward his room.

“Allura and Lance are speaking again?”

“Tentatively, but give them time and they’ll be okay,” Coran promised.

Keith had never been to an opera, let alone out to dinner. That night, they piled into two separate carriages, dressed to the nines. Keith was forced into a silk top hat and a coat with tails, his gloves so white they seemed to glow. Lance gave him a brooch for his coat, a pin of gold to decorate his collar.

Supper was a strange affair. Keith felt as if he and Shiro stuck out like sore thumbs, obviously out of their comfort zones in the rich atmosphere of the restaurant. There were too many utensils, and where they were much more relaxed at the house, Keith felt like everyone was watching him fumble around his meal. He sat stiffly in his seat, a cramp forming between his shoulder blades from how tense he was. Across the table, Lance looked effortless in this scene, a glass of wine in his hand as he talked softly to Hunk next to him, an easy smile across his face. He caught Keith staring at him and sent a wink his way. Keith flushed pink.

The opera was. . . interesting to say the least. They sat above the audience in a private booth with Allura, Hunk, Lance and Coran all donning opera glasses. They looked ridiculous. Keith leaned forward in his seat, arm draped over the banister to watch the story unfold below him. Lance leaned forward in his seat, his hand brushing against Keith’s and sent a shock of warmth through Keith’s system. He didn’t want to pull away from where their fingers touched. 

Intermission finally came. Lance leaned back in his seat, wiping a stray tear from his eye.

“That was gorgeous, absolutely phenomenal,” he sighed. 

“That was pretty nice.” Keith had no idea what was going on. He spaced for most of the opera, too wrapped up in the feeling of Lance’s hand touching his and the faces he made during the opera’s story. He caught himself in a fantasy at one point, his hand holding Lance’s firmly, yet so tenderly. 

“I’m going to the restroom real quick,” Keith murmured, standing up and rushing out of the booth. His heart was racing at those sudden intrusive thoughts, blood boiling in a way unlike his usual fiery anger. In the washroom, he splashed some water on his face. It cooled his heated skin, snapping him out of his stupor.

Lance is a  _ faerie.  _ It’s immoral for them to even consider anything romantic! He is just a small blip in Lance’s long life, and who knows, when they break up in an aggressive manner, Lance might curse him or throw him into a faerie ring with no hope of escaping. 

He chuckled a bit to himself, stepping out of the washroom, as he remembered how only a mere two months ago he had panicked at the thought of being anywhere near a faerie. Now he was trying to figure out if it was okay to reciprocate romantic feelings for one?

Shiro would know what to do, Shiro always knows what to do.

The hallway was completely empty. The opera must have started again. He picked up the pace, going down the hall in a light jog. 

“Good evening, Mr. Kogane.” A drawling voice came from behind Keith. He whipped around and skidded to a halt to the voice. 

Lotor was here. He was dressed up in a nice suit, his cravat a milky white. He made his way down the hall toward Keith.

“Good evening,” Keith said stiffly. 

Lotor tsked. “I don’t need you in my way.”

“There’s a whole hallway. I’m not that wide, just walk around me.” Keith stepped aside, waving to let him pass by. Awfully rude bloke, Keith thought.

“No, my ascension. You’re the source of my problem,” Lotor lamented. “I could stop this madness, I was on the road to becoming the next Winter King, all I needed was to marry another so I may rise to the throne. I could bring back order, the fae would stop killing you mortals, all it takes is for Lance to say yes.”

“Allura is more than happy to marry you.”

“Allura needs permission from Titania and Oberon to marry from the Unseelie Court.” Lotor stepped closer to Keith. The temperature of the hall dropped significantly. A shiver ran through Keith. “But Lance, I just need his approval. But that’s where you come in.”

“I have nothing to do with this,” Keith hissed, taking a step back. He could see his breath coming out in white puffs, spiderweb cracks of ice forming over the lanterns. The one behind Lotor shattered.

“You have  _ everything  _ to do with this.” Was the only warning he got before there was an icy hand at his throat and he was tossed down the hallway. The impact was jarring, sending a painful shock down his spine. His head throbbed, throat burning from Lotor’s ice-like hands. The room spun as he stumbled to his feet. He needed to get back to the others.

Lotor was blocking the hallway back to the the booth. He lunged at Lotor, fists flying to land a hit. He wasn’t trained in any means, but enough street-fights in his teen years made him a little better than most. He landed a solid punch on Lotor’s jaw, his head snapped back and made his silver bob fly. Lotor kicked Keith’s feet out from under him with a growl.

“Don’t  _ touch  _ me you filthy human,” Lotor growled. He bared his teeth,  canines inhumanly sharp and his skin was taking on a sickly shade. He lashed out, much faster than before. Keith barely dodged it, but he could feel the cold of his hands burn through his coat sleeve, despite barely even grazing him. Lotor was striking, faster and colder, and rounding Keith back down the hallway, further away from Lance and the others. 

“You attacked me first, you crud,” Keith huffed. He was backed quite literally into the wall. A hall stretched out to his right and left. “I’ve barely exchanged words with you, how would I stop your ascension?’

“You have Lance tied around your little pinky, how have you not noticed?” he scoffed, “He’s so infatuated with you- looks at you with those big blue eyes like you hung the stars in the sky for him. I could ever get him to marry me with you in the picture.”

“You- have you been stalking us?!”

“I might have caught sight of you two out in the daffodil fields, but no matter. He shall mourn for your death, and it will be for the sake of the Unseelie Court for you to perish.”

Keith inched along the wall, toward the shorter one he prayed would take him to an exit, or better yet back to the auditorium. Lotor strolled forward, a bounce to his step and his hair had grown down to his hips. It swished behind him like a snow-white cape. He was slowly transforming into his fae form. Keith tried not to look toward the hall and give away his route of escape. “Aren’t there a load of other faeries you can choose from? You’re a prince, someone might be stupid enough to fall for you.” He sent a quick prayer that Allura doesn’t find out what he just called her. 

“No, I need  _ him.  _ Unseelie royalty, with a natural charisma and untapped leadership qualities, he’s perfect.”

Keith froze. “Lance is a gentleman of the Summer Court. You don’t even know anything about him.”

Lotor tipped his head back and let out a bellowing laugh. His skin had taken on a lavender hue, the whites of his eyes tinted an ominous shade of yellow. “No, my little human, Lance hasn’t told you anything about _ him. _ ”

Keith frowned. “What, I mean, we haven’t known each other long, and he’s lived a long time. There’s still a lot I don’t know.”

“He’s an  _ honorary  _ gentleman of the Summer Court, yes,” Lotor said. “But his roots are in the Winter Court with me. He’s the son of the Grand Duke Antonith, Marquess Lasyndre .  About sixty years ago he grew tired of the Winter Court and abandoned his own family and title, crossed the border between Courts, and begged Titania and Oberon to let him become a faerie of the Seelie Court. He left me heartbroken, and he’s the only one that is qualified to rule the Winter Court with me.”

It was a shock to his system. Despite how Lance spoke of the Unseelie fae with poison dripping his words, he spoke of his own family. He spoke of himself that way. His heart clenched at the fact Lance kept this important detail about himself secret. He wasn’t mad at him, he couldn’t be with how hard his heart beat for him, he was disappointed that he kept this from him.

But Lotor acted as if he’d cornered Keith. He grinned wickedly. Little jagged, violet marks appearing at the lower corners of his eyes and ears coming to a sharp point, a signature of all faeries, completed his transformation. He was much taller than before, limbs unnaturally long, and fingertips ending in a sharp claw that could definitely rip Keith apart.

“And if he were to finish Courting you, he would ascend without me,” Lotor continued. “I don’t want that, thus for the sake of the Unseelie Court and the well-being of your puny Middle Realm, I’ll have to kill you. Goodbye, Mr. Kogane. It was a pleasure knowing you.” 

In a flash, ice came hurtling toward Keith at an alarming speed. He dodged out of the way,  but it grazed his legs. It burned so much, numbing the nerves with fire. He ran for it.

Keith ran hard and fast down the elegantly carpeted hallway, the light fixtures exploding one after the other with the ice pressing into its delicate shades. He turned another random corner, and dodged out of a door he prayed to god was some sort of way out. His lungs screamed at him, unused to the burn of exertion. His legs were shaking from the cold, numb with ice. Another shock of ice hit his arm, completely encasing it in heavy ice and throwing his balance off. He quickly lost feeling in his fingers.

He stumbled out the door and into a dark alley. Patches of dirty snow laden with trash was the only thing out there. 

An arm shot out from behind him, clawing at his back to grab his coat. Keith successfully dodged it last second, but Lotor’s long claws tore through his nice coat and into the skin of his back. He gasped through the pain, a hot burning different from the ice on his arm and legs. 

He fell forward into one of the dirty patches of snow, a hot wetness dripping down his spine. 

“I should really stop playing with my prey, Mr. Kogane.” Lotor stepped out of the opera house, the light framed his intimidatingly tall silhouette. Keith could hear the muffled sounds of the opera going on from here, the main singer’s high notes and the orchestra’s music swell. It was like a morbid lyrical accompaniment to his death. 

Lotor grabbed at Keith’s throat, claws digging into the soft flesh. Pinpricks of blood dripped steadily down into his collar; it soaked the crisp white of his shirt and ran down the cord of the necklace. He couldn’t breathe. Black spots danced at the corners of his vision.

The pendant.

Coran’s words flashed through his mind. He had no idea how to use it, but he hoped it would work. He got his pointy toed shoes into Lotor’s ribs and gave him a hard kick with whatever strength he could muster. It didn’t work at first, Lotor’s free hand grabbing at his ankles. His other foot kicked out and nailed him under the chin. The click of his jaw resonated in the empty alley. Lotor released him with a sharp gasp. His claws left awful red streaks across his throat and even tore his collar. 

Keith grabbed his necklace through his shirt, and asked it to take him away.

Nothing happened.

He felt his blood trickle down his chest, his prayers going unheard and he stumbled down the alley where he hoped an exit might be. The warm blood dribbled passed his pecs, onto his ribs.

Lotor, clutching his most likely broken jaw, lunged to grasp Keith’s coattails. Panic flooded Keith’s system, he begged it to get him out of there. His blood, hot on his icy skin, soaked the pendant sitting on his ribs. 

The air around him was sucked out, a wind pushed at him in all directions. Lotor’s hand disappeared, along with the remaining air in his body. Unlike when Lance took him to the Seelie Court where the air forced them downward, it felt like his body was being pushed everywhere at once. He kept his eyes firmly shut, unable to take a breath in. It was fast and dizzying, and ended just as soon as it happened.

He landed face first onto a cool ground, the crunch of leaves announcing where he might be. He felt cold and numb, hot and dizzy. He couldn’t open his eyes, and barely take a breath in. His ears were ringing, but he could hear voices echoing above him.

A cool hand pressed into the back of his head, caressing his hair. He passed out before he could see who touched his head so tenderly. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> comments and kudos clear my skin and make me write faster. thanks for all your support so far, were 2/3 done! currently i have two halloween fics that are wip and i want them both up during the week of halloween, so keep an eye out for that! and as for the final part to this, the absolute latest itll be out is february, but thats if everything goes wrong. real talk im expecting the last part out before new years. the first part took me like a month and a half but this one was like, 6 months bc of AX, finals, and working like every day of summer which sUCKED. thanks for sticking around, your comments make me feel validated.  
> main tumblr: canadiangothstalker  
> art tumblr: mirai-eats  
> twitter: mirai_eats


	3. Chrysamthemum

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Keith learns a thing or two about himself.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you didn't forget about me! Thanks for waiting 9 years it took me a long time to write this because of 1)finals 2)i work retail november through janurary drained the life from me 3)im a lazy ass and didn't bother deafy as much as i should have to do this. some of yall might have also noticed the chapter count went up. halfway through writing this part i realized i couldnt cram everything i wanted to into the last part so i added another chapter so i wouldnt suddenly drop a 30k chapter out of nowhere. keeping ym 4 chapter rhythm up huh....

Keith awoke with a sharp gasp. He fumbled for a moment, heavy darkness pressed in around him. His hand caught on a curtain of thick fabric and accidentally pulled himself out of bed. He hit the ground hard with a groan, his leg tangled in the curtain. He blinked to clear bright spots in his eyes from the sudden light spilling in. The room around him was small, but the window drapes were pulled open to reveal the floor to ceiling windows that overlooked a golden autumn scenery.  

“You’re awake.” A soft voice spoke from the doorway. Keith stumbled to his feet and smoothed down his nightshirt at the unannounced guest.  

It was the Autumn faerie from the Winter Court- and his dream.

“Th- Who are you?” He winced, his throat was beyond parched and came out hoarse. He quickly cleared his throat. 

“Krolia. It’s been a long time, Keith.” She stepped fully into the room and shut the door behind her. 

“It’s been a day.”

“It’s been years.” Krolia glided up to him, her hands reached out to stroke his cheek. “You’ve grown so much.” 

He flinched back from her touch and regretted it when he saw the hurt flash across her face. She withdrew her hand as if he had burned her. He caught a glimpse of an elegant ring with a brilliant red jewel glinted on her finger before she tucked her hand away under her silken robe. She had familiar violet eyes, rich indigo framed by thick eyelashes. “I’m sorry, I don’t think I remember you,” he said.

“It’s unfortunate you don’t.” She took a step back, the rustling of her heavy, silk robes was the only noise in the room. The hazy forest beyond the window didn’t make a whisper of sound.

“You’re my mother.” The realization shot Keith like an arrow straight to his heart. “How? You’re-”

“Countess of the Autumn Court, and your mother.”

“So I’m. . .”

“Half-fae. Your father is human, and he is the only man I’ve ever loved.”

Keith stumbled back to lean against the bed. Half-fae? He felt. . .  guilty. Alarmed, for sure. Overwhelmed and panic were the main feelings running through his mind. He felt hot all of the sudden. 

“How? If I’m not- not fully human, how have I not noticed?”

“Your fae nature is dormant, but you have heat in you that Autumn fae possess. We can be an impulsive and ill-tempered bunch.” She sat down in an armchair by the window, taking a second to arrange her layers of robes. “You rarely fall ill, and you have my eyes.”

“You could be using glamour to trick me,” Keith pointed out.

Krolia narrowed her indigo eyes. “You have my eyes.”

Right. Faeries can’t lie.

“Why don’t church bells and such don’t harm me?” He tried again.

“You’re half, so you’re immune to a lot of things that would usually harm us. You have a hard time lying, but you‘re able to.”

She’s right. Keith’s a shit liar and it always makes his stomach roll. Keith straightened himself and climbed up on the bed to properly sit on it. “Where're my pointy ears?”

She laughed and reached up to touch her own. “You have them, but I put a powerful glamour over you as a child to hide them so you may live with your father and brother in peace. You’ve already developed the rest of your features, but I can unlock them for you and teach you how to glamour them again.”

Keith was silent. “Where were you?”

She cocked her head to the side, brows furrowed in confusion. “What do you mean?”

“Father told me you died. He raised us until he passed, and Shiro took care of me as best he could all while missing an arm.” Keith’s lip trembled, throat burned with a fire he only knew as misery. He wasn’t going to cry in front of her. “We were homeless three times in the thirteen years we were left to fend for ourselves. And yet here you are, alive and well, and you watched us suffer. Am I really your son, if you abandoned us so easily? I was told you Unseelie Fae are malevolent creatures, it must be true if my own mother is one.”

Krolia didn’t say a word. She turned to stare out the golden-lit window. “He’s dead now.” Her voice was weak, watery. “Where is he resting?”

“In a cemetery not far from where we grew up at. He died in a factory fire. You don’t need to see him.” It didn’t hurt anymore, it stopped hurting long ago. But seeing his own mother in front of him, eyes wet and lips bitten, filled his heart with grief he thought he buried long ago with his father. 

“I’m sorry I was never there. I love. . . loved your father dearly, more than anyone I have ever loved.” She stood from her chair and went over to one of the tall windows. She matched the scenery outside, the warm colors dredged in cold. “There hasn’t been a day that went by without you three on my mind.”

“Shiro isn’t. . .”

“He’s truly human. Your father had a wife before I, and she passed away after childbirth.”

“What does it mean to be half-fae? Will I live forever as you do?” Keith shifted and pushed himself off the bed. He didn’t join her by the window. 

“You will, but your magic is weaker. Your lungs are forever ruined due to your time as a chimney sweep, there’s no cure for that. You age as a human now but will slow to a stop soon. Your glamour is weaker than the average faerie. Would you like to see yourself?”

Keith hesitated, fear cold in his blood. “Show me.”

She gently took his hand and lead him to a full-length mirror with a gilded gold frame carves with leaves. It was discerning seeing his own reflection. He stood still, so pale and scrawny, washed out by the black of his shaggy hair and the cream of his nightshirt that brushed just above his scraped knees. His cheeks were fuller than they’ve ever been due to how well he’d been eating, but his eyes remained rimmed in red and bruised. Krolia stepped behind him and placed her hands on his shoulders, her long nails dug into the thin fabric of his shirt. Her hands were so warm.

She placed a gentle kiss on the top of his greasy head and he gasped. There was a ripple in the air and it was as if a heavily embroidered blanket with his face on it was pulled off him, lifting a weight from his shoulders he never knew was there dropped to the floor and left him breathing in fresh air. The mirror image of him shivered and flickered, a fog erasing his features to reveal his actual face.

He had pointed ears, of course. His skin didn’t change color like Lotor’s did, but he had the streaks of red in the corners of his eyes like Krolia, and the cuts of red from jaw to cheek but more like a dull, faded red than the rich scarlet on hers. His neck looked like it was doused in molten gold with flecks fading up into his jaw. Pulling his collar back revealed the gold faded and scattered down his collarbones and stopped just shy of his chest. His skin was smoother, the bruises and redness gone. His knees were clean. Keith quickly ripped off his nightshirt, Krolia having backed away and covered her eyes with the long sleeves of her robes. His body was smooth, skin felt like silk under his fingers, woven by the gossamer thread of a spider. On his back, he craned his neck and turned to see twin lines, a muted gold, ran down his back between his shoulder blades. Flecks of gold scattered from the marks.

“We used to fly, you know,” Krolia said. Her face was still covered. “As young fledglings, most of us were the size of a fleck of dust, with wings made of light. As we mature we lose them, too small to hold our bodies up any longer.”

“I’m twenty, not that young, you know,” Keith murmured. He traced as much as he could of the lines on his back. They were even silkier than the rest of his skin, thinner than old parchment paper. “It’s so delicate.”

“And I’m over three thousand,” she retorted. “Be careful with it, there’s no weaker spot on your body.”

“That’s foolish, to have my weak point on my back where it’s not easily defended.” He turned back around and pulled his soft hair aside to trace the point of his ears. The very tip of them was dipped in gold. “I’ve never seen so much gold before, let alone on my body.”

Krolia winced. “I need to explain myself, at least have you understand my absence.” Keith put back on his nightshirt and turned to face her. She dropped her arms from her face, sleeves so long they nearly touched the floor where the bottom of her robes pooled. 

Keith’s stomach loudly grumbled. Krolia snapped her mouth shut and suppressed a smile. 

“Will I still be stuck here if I eat the food?” Keith asked.

“No, you’ll be fine. The food won’t affect you as it will with any mortal. I have clothes for you, we can discuss this over tea.” With that, she turned and left through the large oak door.

He found a robe like hers in the wardrobe. He had no idea how to tie the sash around him like the delicate band around Krolia’s waist with the intricate knot on the back. He found a pair of boots and trousers and tucked his nightshirt into that and kept the shorter robe on with a loose knot over to stave off the chill. Somewhat dressed now, with his faerie features on display, he took a deep breath and stepped out of his room. 

The hall was large. This must be an actual castle, Keith thought. The carpet and walls were all a deep red and patterned with bronze. One side of the hall was doors like the one he stepped out of, the other was wide, arching windows that viewed a forest of orange, red, and yellow leaves bathed in a haze of gold. A figure stood at the end of the hall facing Keith. A man, with hair the color of pale yellow hay that fell down past his chin and draped in robes similar to Krolia’s, yet not nearly as exquisite and layered. His eyes were small and watery and watched Keith walk toward him.

“The Honorable Keith Kogane.” The man bowed down low, his hair brushed over his face like a curtain. “I was charged by the Countess to take you to tea in the garden.” Without checking to see if Keith followed, he turned on his heel and trekked down the hall. Keith scrambled to follow him.

The red hallways were completely empty. He was taken down a spiral, stone staircase with golden lanterns illuminating the shadowed corners, and out into an even larger hallway lined with bronze statues and the windows made up the whole wall. The statues were unnerving, molded into creatures Keith has only seen in paintings and children’s books. Another set of doors led them out into a garden. 

A wide, stone pathway wound into the yellow and red trees. The escort took him down the path where dying trees arched over them. The ground was sprinkled in fallen leaves, green shrubbery and grass that survive the autumn gold under their high branches. Keith was turning to make sure he looked at everything: the tree that stretched high with branches twining and spread wide like blood vessels, moss-covered rocks and ancient bark, dark stone statues shaped like little houses with weirdly pointed roofs, speckles of tiny flowers that shivered in the cool air. 

The path leads to a stone bridge that arched over a wide stream, the water cascading in steps of multiple little waterfalls toward a lake that Keith saw a glimpse of between the trees. A little further down, the trees opened up and they walked on a wooden path along a wide lake, where a bridge stretched from the shore to where a large rock sat just shy of the glassy, black water. A gazebo sat atop the rock, where Krolia sat waiting. The escort stopped at the base of the bridge and bowed, then retreated back down where they came. Hesitantly, Keith crossed the creaky bridge to his mother. A low table was set up on a mat. Krolia looked up at his entrance and gestured to the orange cushion across the small table from her. He tentatively sat down.

The tea set was unlike the usual British sets he’s used to, with all the fancy pieces and painted cups and saucers. This was a clay teapot with a cast iron handle, the cups had no saucers or handles. A plate of tiny thumbprint cookies and slices of cake that smelt of cinnamon and nutmeg sat in the middle of the table. Krolia was chewing pensively on one of the cookies, eyes distant as she stared out into the lake. The gazebo had no railings, only the posts to hold the roof over their heads, thus making it easy to look out at the scenery from their spot on the floor. A cold wind blew out from over the lake, sending a shiver through Keith. 

She swallowed her cookie and spoke.“Beautiful, isn’t it?”

Keith nodded. The tea was hot and tasted light and clean. He stared down at his cup for a moment, tracing the ridge of it with his thumb. “Why did you leave us?”

“Straight to the point, aren’t you?” She smiled. It slipped off her face as she spoke again. “As you must know, Queen Mab has been gone for thirty-seven years. She has a tendency to wander off, but without her, the Unseelie Court is more. . .  chaotic than usual. Especially the Winter Court. A few years before I met your father, King Kolivan asked me to personally keep an eye on our borders. King Zarkon was purposefully sending his troops through our rings into the Middle Realm to meddle with humans now that Mab wasn’t around to tell him no. As a Countess, I had reign over them in status and power. I’d redirect the troops to go back to the Winter Court, making them think they’ve accomplished their missions in swapping babies.”

“Doesn’t the Autumn Court replace babies with Changelings, too?” Keith pointed out.

“If the mother deserves it, yes. Not everyone is fit to raise a child.” She stopped at Keith’s leveled glare. She cleared her throat and continue. “I met your father at that border. He stumbled upon my spot and we immediately fell in love.”

Keith remembered his dream, of Krolia and his father meeting in an autumn forest, the leaves falling in reverse. 

“I had another Viscount guard the point for me, and went back to the Middle Realm in full glamour to be with him.” She tugged a chain from the depths of her robes, a golden locket with a deep, red flower embossed and painted into the front. “This is a chrysanthemum, my favorite flower. His too, because he said it reminds him of me.” She popped it open and showed Keith the contents.

A grey photo washed away with age of his father was on one face. On the other was a young Shiro holding a sleeping baby. “I loved him so much, and I never stopped. Takashi was like my own child, and then we had you and it felt even more like a family.” Her voice cracked, eyes wet with tears. “A mother next door found out her baby wasn’t her baby, and another mother’s son disappeared chasing lights in the forest. The Winter Fae were causing more havoc than ever, and it made me scared for my two little boys. I left my post for love, and for the families who were being torn apart.” She sniffed and took a deep, shuddering breath. “Kolivan found out, only two months after you were born. I was devastated when he sent Puck, of all fae, to personally retrieve me from the house. A war was brewing between the Courts of Unseelie and I needed to be on the frontlines with my king, to stop Zarkon from all but overrunning the Middle Realm. We’ve been working with the Seelie Court as undercover to slow down Zarkon’s faeries since, and I have not been able to come and see you, see my family, due to my position in the war.”

“You didn’t see us at all.” He wanted to be angry with her, but after living for twenty years without the motherly affection he craved deep down and was finally presented with it, he was hesitant to take it. “You could have taken even a moment to see us. Sent a sign, a letter, anything to know we weren’t alone.”

“And risk putting you in danger? Zarkon is breathing down all the Unseelie Courts’ necks, if I were to leave he would have a reason to punish me.”

“He’s not even your king, what power does he have over you?”

“A king is a king, even my own king cannot stop him from punishing me for breaking faerie law.”

“You broke the law to be with my father? To have me?” He felt himself deflate.

Krolia nodded and shifted to pull up the shoulder of one of her robes that had slipped down. She looked like she was drowning in the warm silks, pooled around her on the floor and spread out like a rich puddle. “It’s even worse to have a half-fae child.”

Keith leaned back on his hands and gazed out to the obsidian lake. The gold and red trees reflected off the smooth surface at the shoreline. The air was crisp, fresh, devoid of the pollution of London. “Why are you wearing robes like this?” He asked. He had so many questions, and he had no way to organize them except by letting them spill out.

“Each fraction of the Court reign from different regions of the world.” Krolia took a sip of her tea and shifted to arrange her long sleeves neatly next to her to accommodate her holding her teacup up. “The Autumn Court is home vaguely somewhere in East Asia, our cultural aesthetics derives from the humans in the Middle Realm. The Winter Court is in northern Asia and some of Europe. Russia I believe? Some Scandinavian states, too. The spring is in the central and eastern Europe, and summer somewhere southern Europe and the Middle Eastern, Mediterranean region? It’s very hard to tell, the Faerie realms are in its own space that doesn’t have an exact location. And to answer your question, I enjoy the Japanese aesthetics, but I sense a new era on the horizon and the kimono might not be as prevalent anymore. I’ll miss them.” She longingly stared at a maple leaf embroidered sleeve, woven in gold and bronze. 

“Your castle is more European than east Asian, don’t you think?” Keith pointed out.

“Yes, this is just a base I’m staying at close to the border of the Winter Court. It’s ugly, but the garden is lovely. My actual home is in the heart of the Court. I would love to take you there, the garden is even more spectacular than this one.”

“I need to get back to the Middle Realm first,” Keith said. He chugged down the rest of his tea and ate a cookie in one bite, standing up and brushing crumbs from his front. “The others are probably worried about me.”

“You can’t, not until the guard switch from winter to autumn faeries may I be able to sneak you back to the Middle Realm.” Krolia stood, too, drew herself to her full height. 

“And how long will that be?” Keith quirked a brow,

“I couldn’t say, but I will send a word out to keep an eye on the shifts for an opening so you may leave if it makes you feel any better,” she said. “Time moves differently in the Courts, depending on the reigning season.  Weeks here will only be days there. You were unconscious for a whole day, but it is most likely only dawn in London. Rest up, please my son, and let us catch up at least a little longer.” She sat back down and patted the seat next to her. 

Keith reluctantly sat back down. “Is everyone okay? What about Lotor?”

“He’s back in the Winter Court facing reprimand form his father for attacking you so brutally. No Court faes ever attack humans, they’re too good for it.”

“Do the others know I’m okay?”

“Your little posse of spring and summer faeries?” She was munching on another one of the cookies. The plate was near empty already. “Most likely not. You did disappear on the spot. Only Lotor, Zarkon, and I know what happened. For now, while everything is being sorted out, I can teach you everything you need to know, and you can catch me up on the past twenty years.”

“Is there a way to get a word out that I’m alright?” He asked earnestly. He couldn’t bear the idea of Shiro thinking he was dead.

“No, not likely. It’s awful, but you need to hang tight until the guard shift so we can sneak you out. It should only be a fortnight, hopefully.” She didn’t sound too sure. 

They finished tea quietly after that. Keith was doomed to stay in this castle with his mother for an indefinite amount of time. He was still upset, still needed to process everything that happened, and tried to stay away from her. He took to wandering the castle halls and garden to pass the time, but Krolia would find him and drag him to do this or that. They’d play chess (which he was awful at, but Krolia was not very good either), take strolls around the lake, and have tea time every single day. It drove him nuts at first with how much she was getting in his space, but it didn’t last long. 

This was his mother. The resemblance was there, and she had stories she would tell of Shiro and his father before he was born. Keith promised to take her to see his grave one day soon. 

Weirdly enough, Keith missed Lance. He thought of him, more often than he probably should. He wandered the garden and wondered what Lance would think, what he would have to say about the trees or the birds. He wondered if he was good at chess (or at least better than his mother), or if Lance thought this chill was nice weather. Most of all, he thought of his smile and imagined his hand within his own, the barest memory of the kiss on his knuckles from the night after the daffodil fields lingered on his knuckles in a tingling sensation that he never wanted to go away. 

Krolia asked him one day if he was married, and he said no, and thought of a tropical sea and the richest, sweetest bronze sparkling with kisses made by the sun. She gave him a knowing look, and he knew she probably knew based on how much he would talk about him over tea time. 

Forced in her company for a little over two weeks, Keith grew close to her. Some deep part of him hoped this was just another huge faerie joke to mess with him, but a bigger part prayed to God that this is her, this is the missing piece in his life.

It was exactly sixteen days trapped in the Autumn castle until they received word from a sprite that it was okay to leave. She had taught him to place the glamour back on himself and manipulate it at will to look however he pleased. He chose the face he’s known his whole life. 

With the marks of red and gold gone from his skin and ears rounded out, he was given fresh clothes and a snack of pound cake for the road. Krolia walked him to the edge of the property, her robes a deep red and a circlet of gold on her head, and gave him a warm hug and a kiss on his cheek. 

“I promise to come to see you again,” she murmured into his ear, stooped down a little to accommodate their height difference. It was a tad unnerving how she towered over him. “I love you, Keith. Be safe, and give Shiro some of that cake, too.”

Keith smiled. “I don’t know, it’s my favorite. I might eat it all before I get there.”

She patted his cheek and smiled a sad smile, strained in an attempt to keep her watery eyes at bay. “Keep your head high, Keith. And give Lance my regards.”

Keith spluttered out a response but was missed by her shoving him back into the trees and he was sucked away. He was hooked by the back of his shirt and dragged into the depths of the forest, the golds and reds blurring away and Krolia became a rose-colored speck until the trees blocked her from view. 

The scenery turned from gold to beige, and back to white. His ride came to a jerking stop and he tumbled backward into a snowbank. He pulled himself up and stumbled out onto a road that laid outside the park, an old church across the street from him. This was the neighborhood he grew up in before his father passed. 

He wandered down the street, where he knew would take him to the metropolis of London. The gates of the church creaked in the icy wind, the sky pitch black and speckled with fresh falling snow. There wasn’t a soul in sight. He stopped in front of the gate and let himself into the cemetery behind the church. Toward the back at the base of a hill was an unnamed grave, a rock bleached white and smooth as a pillow sat by itself. He dug through his pocket and pulled out the cake Krolia gave him, broke off a sizeable chunk, and placed it on the rock. 

“I’ll come back with mother, and Shiro, soon. I promise.” He gulped. “I love you, father.”

He trekked back up the road and finished off the rest of the cake, only a couple bites left of a corner for Shiro. The church bells tolled four in the morning. He picked up the pace, his heavy coat wouldn’t keep him warm for long. He set a course for the heart of  London toward the Thames where he knew the townhouse resided near its banks. 

Around late morning he reached the front steps, his legs ached and fingers numb from walking for so long. He knocked on the lion knocker, the loud  _ clang, clang, clang  _ rang through the eerily still air muffled by the light snow. It was February at this point, nearing the end of the snow season and early spring, the air was a tad warmer, yet not warm enough to stave off the ice. He shivered at the doorstep until it was flung open a moment later by Coran. His pale face broke out into a large grin and he pulled Keith into a tight hug.

“We’ve missed you, my boy.” His words were muffled in Keith’s hair. “Where have you been all this time?”

“I’m sorry, how long was I gone?” Keith pulled back. Coran stepped inside, Keith followed suit and let the door clang shut behind him. The foyer was warm but just as quiet as it was outside in the muted snow. “And where is everyone?”

Coran’s shoulders sagged. “Let’s get you warmed up and we can explain everything.” He ushered Keith up the stairs toward his room, not a thing was out of place, and neither was a soul seen. He changed out of his damp clothes into the clean, warm ones from the wardrobe and tied his hair back with a ribbon. It has gotten unruly and in dire need of a haircut. 

He met Coran back at the parlor, where he sat with a tea set and finger foods for him. He sat down and dug in, and halfway through his first cup of tea did Coran speak.

“You didn’t return from the washroom, and Lance went looking for you,” he started. “He found your blood on Lotor’s hands, and you nowhere in sight. Lotor said you’re gone and retreated to the Court.”

Keith put down his cup, hands shaking too much to hold it steady. The peony painted china clank loudly over the sound of the roaring fire in the fireplace and Keith’s heavy breathing. “What happened to Lance?”

“He followed him. We haven’t seen him since.”

“Where’s Shiro? Or the others?”

“Retreated back to the Seelie Court. Allura has lost her affections for Lotor, and Pidge has fallen deeper into her mourning. Shiro moved into the flat we set up for him and started his job, but he’s been taking long walks that I know he’s looking for you in. He visits daily for any updates.” Coran stared off into the crackling fire, the sharp snap of the wood popping and burning the only thing tying Keith down. “Where were you?”

“In the Autumn Court I.” Keith swallowed. “I met my mum. She’s- she’s the Countess of the Autumn Court, and my true mother. I’m half-fae. Tell me, how long was I gone?”

“Only a week, don’t worry, my boy. This explains a few things, though,” Coran murmured. Then he laughed. “Lance is not going to like being one-upped again by you, he’s merrily a gentleman of the Summer Court, though technically he’s a Marquess of the Winter Court so he is a couple tiers above you. But would you bring him up or would you be brought up?” Coran drifted off, deep in thought. 

“Coran? Where do you think Lance went?” Keith waved a hand in front of Coran’s face to grab his attention back. Coran jolted back to Earth.

“He might be wandering the Unseelie Court, or he could have already ended up back in the Middle Realm. He thinks you might be dead, it was safe to assume so with all the blood, but Lotor only said you ‘disappeared’, so it was hard to determine your fate. If you really need to find for him, look for the morning glories. They’re his flower.” A twinkle that was so familiar glittered in Coran’s eye. 

Keith nodded and stood. He bowed his head in respect and headed for the door, but paused just as he touched the door handle and twisted to look back at Coran. “Why weren’t you surprised when I told you I am half-fae?”

“Going through a faerie ring a couple times would have scrambled your brain up quite a bit. Lance might have had an inkling of what you were to do that, or he is genuinely an idiot.”

“Perhaps the latter.” A grin twitched on Keith’s lips. 

“Are you going to go look for him?” Coran rose from his seat, a frown on his aged yet ageless face.

“I have an idea where he might be.” He opened the door and paused. “How do you work a faerie ring?”

Coran huffed. “You stand in it. There’s really not much to it.”

Keith nodded. “Okay, just uh, double checking.”

He borrowed a horse from the coachmen and headed toward the general direction of where he thought Lance might be. It was tricky, it had been dark at the time and it will be dark in a few hours. The sky was slate grey, refused to let the sun shine through. The snow was dirty slush on the side of the roads, but the chill still prickled through his cloak as he road fast and hard down the roads.

It was dusk when he found it. He tied the horse to a fence and snuck behind the house, the lights thankfully off, to where an old shed stood. Behind that was a ring of mushrooms drowning in slush. He held his breath and shut his eyes as he stepped inside the ring.

The wind rushed up and he was sucked back down into the Spring Court. He landed hard on his feet and stumbled out of the ring, the air sucked out of him. It took him a moment to catch his breath again.

A sea of yellow laid out in front of him, the swell of hills and pokes of green sprinkled through the yellow cups of sunshine like the crest of a wave drenched in gold. 

“Lance!” He called. “Lance! Where are you?” He stumbled through the field looking two and fro, only yellow blurred in his vision. He climbed to the top of the highest hill and looked out, the forget-me-not blue sky and bursting sea of yellow that touched down at the silvery line of the white horizon of the Winter Court border were all he could see. He cupped his hands around his mouth and hollered, “LANCE! LASYNDRE! MR. MCCLAIN!” His voice cracked at the end with a sob. He ran down the hill, accelerated from the slope and ran straight toward the wintery forest, his heart burned. He broke through the last of the muddy flowers and leaped into the snow bank. His pace slowed considerably as he reached the tree weighed by snow, where he and Lance hid from the Winter procession. He collapsed to his knees with a heaving breath, the snow dampening his trousers and seeped into his socks. In frustration, he slammed a heated fist into the frozen bark. The tree shivered under impact and dropped blocks of snow and ice around him. A dark imprint of his fist was left steaming in the wood. 

He went back to the ring of mushrooms without Lance. The rush up made him dry heave once back in the Middle Realm. Vertigo and exhaustion made him dizzy and he stumbled to the ground gasping for air. He was suddenly weak from the running and the up and down between here and the Court. 

It took him some time to catch his breath, then he pulled himself to his feet and stumbled back to the horse and off to the next location.

The shipyard was abandoned, not yet due for the season to start yet. He tentatively touched the iron gate and only felt the biting cold on the tips of his bare fingers, his palm protected by his fingerless gloves. 

He went to the London Bridge. It was crowded with people walking to and fro, back home supposedly after a long day at work. The church bells rang six times. He flinched at the sudden, booming noise. 

Night had settled like a blanket over London, the noise muffled by the cold and muddy snow that lined the streets. He hopped off his horse and found himself back at the opera house the night he left. His breath puffed out in an icy haze.

The entrance was grand, lit up with guests already coming in for the evening’s opera. He skirted around the edge of the building and entered the maze of alleys to the back. Something crunched under his foot. He looked down and gasped.

A wilted, brilliant blue morning glory was crushed into the snow. Keith’s heart raced, his blood rushed to his ears. He was close!

He went down the alley and found another halfway down and picked up his pace. Two more flowers were to the left, leading down the back of the grand building. He spotted dozens more drooping in the icy slush, the petals withered. He jogged down the alley and followed the line of flowers that grew more condensed, more alive the further he followed them through the maze of steaming pipes and heaps of trash. He nearly tripped over a stray cat in his rush.

Around another bend, he saw him. 

Lance was propped up against the filthy wall, head lolled to the side and eyes shut, lashes sticky with snow. He had a fine layer of white powder over his prone form, but the most significant was the number of flowers growing around him. They grew from the concrete crevices in the wall and ground and encased him in luscious, blue bedding. His hands lay at his side, with the dainty, pale green vines looping around his fingers and baby blossoms bursting between the digits. His head was shrouded in a blue haze of flowers, a halo of flora. 

Keith shuffled close and knelt by his side, doing his best not to crush any of the flowers. He raised a shaking hand and brushed some snow that had gathered on his cheekbones, stuck to his blue lips and pale brow. He rubbed away the ice in his eyelids. His lashes fluttered at the touch, his chest rose with a sharp intake of breath.

“Lance, wake up,” Keith whispered, afraid to break the soft silence. 

Lance sighed, breath cool and misty against Keith’s hands. He panicked, wondered if faeries can get ill from the cold. Flashes of Shiro lying near death in a snowy alley spurred him to move quickly.

He was breathing evenly, deeply even as if merely asleep. Keith leaned in and scooped up Lance in a princess carry, flowers ripped from their roots and fell off Lance’s cold body to the slushy snow. His coat was damp, trousers soaked through. A flash of red caught the corner of his eye on the ground. It was a struggle angling Lance away for him to look down and caught sight of a new flower, a fresh one that mixed with the sea of blue and white. A brilliant red with jaggedly cut petals. There were too many to count, the slim droplets shivering under the cold heavens. It looked familiar, yet he could not place his finger on the name.

He shuddered and turned back down the alley. He followed the path of flowers that were wilting right before his eyes back through the maze of alleys to the mouth where he left his horse, arms burning only slightly due to Lance being so light. It was a struggle mounting Lance on the horse and then himself. He might have knocked Lance’s head into a lampost. Once he was secured in front of Keith between his arms, head leaning back against his shoulder, he rode back off toward the townhouse.

Coran met him at the front steps and helped haul Lance up to his room. His door was at the opposite end of the hall, and a room Keith has never visited. 

It was a flashy room for a flashy man, with deep, navy drapes over the canopy bed and trimmed with gold. The furniture was a little outdated, Rococo style with too much gold and decoration and not enough function. Lance was changed and put into his bed, a warm cloth placed on his head to warm him up.

After the three of them were settled, Coran took the armchair by the crackling fire, Keith in a straight back chair next to the bed. He wouldn’t let his eyes leave Lance’s face.

“Was Lance gone the whole time I was in the Court?” Keith asked, letting his eyes trace Lance’s sharp features. 

Coran nodded. “Fae folk don’t need to eat and sleep as a human does, but emotional unrest and turmoil can take a toll on our bodies.”

“Why do you enjoy tea time every day then, if you don’t truly need to eat?”

“Food is delicious. A good marmalade makes my mouth water.”

Keith chuckled. “I guess so.”

Coran climbed to his feet with a groan and a sharp crack to his back. With a wide stretch and an even wider, louder yawn, Coran said, “I’ll leave you two now, I’ll have a maid nearby to keep an ear out. There’s a bell you may ring to call us once he’s awake.”

Keith nodded. Coran left with a subtle wink and shut the door with a soft  _ click _ behind him. Keith sighed and slumped against his chair, determined to wait for Lance, just as he waited for Keith. 

It wasn’t until early the next morning did Lance stir. Keith drifted in and out of sleep throughout the night, around ten a maid brought him a cup of tea and a plate of tiny sandwiches. He scarfed them down, a tad tired from the sweets and bland tea his mother enjoyed from the Autumn Court. 

The room was warm and cozy. Keith was unable to keep his eyes open and head propped up any longer had rested his head at the edge of his bed, head mere centimeters from Lance’s own lax hand. The clock on the mantle had rung for six in the morning, the cool light of the morning peeped between the cracks of the curtains. A maid had come in an hour ago to restart the fire, the room alight and warm. His bottom hurt from sitting in a hard chair for so long, but he refused to move further away to the comfy armchair by the fire. A blanket had been draped over his shoulders in the night when he had faded out to sleep.

Keith was awake, but he kept himself relaxed across the bed, too tired to move yet. A hand touched the top of his head. He jerked up, suddenly very awake. And was met with Lance’s tired gaze. His hand stayed on Keith’s and ran through the long strands a few times, slow, languid movements. His hair had fallen out of the ribbon during his ride the night before and was lost in the wind.

“Lance,” Keith breathed.

“You’re back,” Lance croaked. 

Keith couldn’t help it. He launched himself up onto the bed and threw himself at Lance. “I’m sorry,” he murmured into Lance’s chest, muffled by the soft silk of his shirt. Lance froze under him, but it took a moment for him to melt into Keith and wrap his arms around him. 

“What happened to you?” Lance whispered. He sounded so fragile, one wrong move could break him to pieces. He shivered in Keith’s arms.

“I’m so sorry, I tried to get back sooner. I couldn’t, but I should have found another way.” He hated the burn in his throat. He picked his head up from Lance’s chest with a sniff. Lance kept his hands wrapped around his back. 

“I thought you were dead.” Lance’s eyes were so heavy and dark, the blue muted and his bronze pallor washed away to a dull tan. He was a snuffed out candle, a shiver of smoke from the leftover light. Keith did this to him,  _ Lotor  _ did this to them.

“I thought I was, too, but-” Keith tugged the faerie star necklace from his shirt collar, a spot of blood still on the metal. “My mother saved me. It took me to her, in the Autumn Court. I-I think she’s my mother. I’m still having a hard time believing in fae, I’m so sorry, but I think I found her, or she found me.” He sat up completely and rolled off Lance, but kept himself close to Lance, their hands intertwined as Keith relayed his tale. 

“Half-fae, no wonder,” Lance sighed when Keith finished. “Your wounds heal quickly, and you have a hard time lying, but that’s pretty much it.”

“Would Shiro wearing his clothes inside out make me uncomfortable?” Keith wondered.

Lance barked out a laugh and sat up, a little more color to his slim cheeks. “I think that would make him uncomfortable more than anything.”

Keith snickered but sobered up quickly. “What about you? What happened after I disappeared? Coran gave me an abridged version, but I need to hear from you.”

“Allura broke Lotor’s hand after the opera, and he retreated back to his father.” Lance had a sneer twitched on his lips. “I went after him and gave him a taste of his own medicine, but he got me pretty good, too. I came back and I-” Lance gulped. “I couldn’t move on. Keith, I thought you were actually dead. I... I wanted to die, too.”

“Oh, Lance.” Keith’s heart clenched. Lance wouldn’t meet his eyes. “But I wasn’t-”

“He made me think you were. I was waiting for the Nightlies to come. They come to the spot a person has died, and suck the residual soul left over. They’re highly toxic, their very breath is poisonous to the fae.”

“ _ Lance.” _

“It never came, I figured you were dragged away to die in the Court. I decided to rot instead, let my essence soak into the alley, haunt it as a malevolent spirit.” Lance’s eyes were glazed over, not focused on anything that was in front of him. They were not the blue of the summer seas, but of a chilling ice Keith has seen only on frozen windows and frosted lakes. The brown of his hair and skin was muted, dulled with a chill. 

He remembered. Lotor told him Lance was born a Winter Fae. This is the past, the Lance he had buried to be part of the Seelie Court. Keith felt a bitter, sour taste in his mouth, a note of guilt that this was his fault, that at the end of the day Lotor wouldn’t have attacked him if he wasn’t so damn attached to Lance, let Lance get attached to him.

“Stop,” Lance said. “It’s not your fault at all. I’m a mopey kind of person.” He turned and gave Keith a small smile. “I couldn’t help but fall for you.”

His breath caught in his throat, face warmed not by the heat of the fire. “Oh?”

Lance nodded. “I’ve only known you for four months, and they’ve been the best four months in my long, long life. It’s more like four days for me. For you, it’s eternal.”

“Four months is not that long.”

“I’m old, Keith. So very old, I stopped paying attention to how time works a long time ago. Huh, I think I was born when the first clock was created. Not the sundial, that’s closer to Oberon and Titania’s age. More like, the first clock that didn’t rely on the sun?” 

“Allura is over a thousand years old, you don’t have much of an excuse.”

“Allura is actually a duchess, of course she’s that old.”

“Wait, when was the first clock invented?” 

Lance thought about it for a second. “Hm, I think the 14th century? Around the time of one of the plague epidemics.” Lance shuddered. “That was the nastiest thing I’ve ever seen. I saw a man actually blow up with excretions from every orifice and then some, so much vomit and blood and-”

Keith slapped a hand over Lance’s mouth. “I’m begging you to stop talking.”

Lance’s eyes glittered, the way only faerie eyes do when filled mischievous mirth. He sobered up quickly, face drawn into a tired expression. Keith slowly pulled back, unsure to trust him not to finish that last statement. 

“I thought I lost you, Keith,” he said softly, voice barely above a whisper. “I was so angry, but I was sad more than anything. I couldn’t bear the thought of you not being here.” He leveled his gaze to Keith’s with a new determination. “I think I’m in love with you.”

The sound of the fire was muted, flooded by the sound of Keith’s blood rushing through his head. Time froze, or perhaps he sat there staring at Lance like a fool, mouth agape, and eyes wide like a dead fish. The words  _ I love you _ didn’t process, they wouldn’t process at all. 

Lance reeled back, pulled the blankets up to his chin and stuttered. “No! I take it back! Never mind, I never said a word to you. This is all just a dream, Keith, I never said a word! Begone now, I need to sleep for the rest of eternity.”

“Wait.” Keith snapped out of his daze. “Get out of there- stop!” He stood and tugged down the blankets from Lance’s shielded head. He held the blanket’s firm in his grasp, body rolled away from Keith. 

“Goodbye, Keith!” His shout was muffled. 

Keith knew his answer. Lance just needed to stop being so dramatic and let  _ go  _ of the blanket!

“I think I’m in love with you, too!” He yelled. Lance froze and slowly pulled the blanket down from his face. His hair was ruffled, skin flushed, and eyes wide, yet still that unsettling pale blue. 

“You do?”

“I... I believe so.” Keith stood straight, gave Lance his space. “I’ve never felt like this, never wanted to be with someone as I do with you. You’re extraordinary, wonderful, smart, charming, and I hated every second I was away from you.”

“I love you,” Lance said again. “I care for you, deeply.”

“I will kill Lotor for you.”

Lance giggled, actually  _ giggled,  _ in a light, airy tone that tugged at Keith’s heart. The blanket was pulled back up to hide Lance’s smiling lips shyly. “That’s unnecessary, but I might take you up on that offer.”

Keith sat down on the side of the bed to tug the blanket back down from his face, refusing to let anything hide his pretty smile. “I thought of you every second I was away. It hurt, how much I missed you.”

“Will you kiss me?” Lance said, his eyes traced over the line of Keith’s lips. “I’ve been dreaming about your hands and lips on me for far too long.”

“Yes, I will,” Keith breathed. His heart was warm in his chest, his belly full of flowers that shifted and turned with his racing heart. 

He leaned in close, and Lance muttered. “Thus with a kiss I die.” 

Keith pulled back and gave him a quizzical look. “What?”

“Please kiss me already.” Lance reached up and tangled his fingers in Keith’s long lock and gently tugged him closer. Keith followed and brushed his lips against Lance’s. The cool skin of his lips tingled, a warmth flooded his body reminiscent of a warmed hearth. He pressed closer, feeling his sweet lips press into his and savored the wonderful, cool feeling of Lance, Lance,  _ Lance _ . 

They parted, Keith’s eyes remained closed and he couldn’t make himself pull away further than the bare centimeter that separated their lips. He didn’t even know when he had closed his eyes. 

“Kiss me again,” Lance whispered, loud in the space between them. Keith complied and kissed him harder this time, relished in the feel of Lance’s lips and soft sigh that brush against his skin. He shivered when Lance slowly dragged his hands up his back, palms flat and traced over the silk of his vest.

A knock on the door had them parting too suddenly. They pulled apart quickly. “Come in!” Keith called breathlessly. The door cracked open and Coran slipped in. Keith pushed himself off the bed and stepped away awkwardly. Lance smoothed down his hair and bit his lip, his coloring was a little warm, eyes a little less cold. 

“Good morning, boys. I see you’ve already been getting a little handsy,” Coran grinned from behind his thick mustache. Keith flushed a deep red. “I won’t tell the others, but consider doing that soon.”

“It’s-it’s uh, we-” Keith stammered.

“We are in love and I’ll fight them all if they don’t agree,” Lance interjected. He had a Cheshire grin on his paled lips, swollen from too many kisses. 

“Good! Finally! I’m tired of you two dancing around each other. I’ve brought you breakfast and some tea. It’s a nice porridge Matilda made especially for you, Lance. It’ll warm you right back up to your normal self.” Coran carried the silver tray over to the bedside table. He reached over and fussed over Lance; fluffed up the pillow, adjusted his blankets, got a fresh cloth for his forehead. Keith stood by the foot of the bed, waiting for Coran to finish. 

“Have you heard from the others?” Keith asked.

“I did,” Coran said cheerfully. “Allura is stuck on some business, but Hunk and Pidge should be back tonight. I sent word to Shiro and he is on his way now.”

Keith sighed at sat down on the armchair by the fire, the warmth not quite what he was craving. “Is Allura still dealing with the Lotor situation?”

“She is. The Winter Court wants to let it slide because he is a prince and Keith is just a human, but she wants justice.” Coran shook his head and handed the bowl of soup to Lance. “I don’t want to tell her about our new discovery quite yet, especially if what your mother did was very much against Court rules, the trouble can be redirected to her. I told her to come back now, leave the issue for another day and we can discuss a better strategy for this particular situation.”

Keith slumped further into the plush armchair. “I’m sorry about this, I keep making things complicated.”

“Don’t say that, we’re doing this because you’re one of us now,” Lance said. There was a spot of grey porridge on his chin and Keith wanted to wipe it away. “We stick together, you hear?”

“I hear, but-”

“Keith, we are not doing you a favor and require nothing of you in return.” Coran stopped him. “Treat Lance like the prince he likes to believe he is-”

“I abhor that.” Lance interrupted.

“-And we won’t have to make things unpleasant for you, do you understand, Mr. Kogane?”

Keith nodded, suddenly much to warm and a little sweaty to be in here. “I understand.”

“Good. I will leave you two be. Enjoy your soup, I’ll send Shiro up when he gets here.” With a curt bow, Coran exited the room with the silver tray tucked under his arm.

“Did he just threaten me?” Keith asked.

“He did. And he will go through with that threat if you don’t treat me like a prince. Now.” Lance clapped his hands, the bowl in his lap empty and his face a little bit dirtier. “Rub my feet, and then fetch me a peacock feather fan to cool me down with. This room is stifling my beauty.”

“I’ll rub your feet if you really want me to, but we can go on a walk instead?” Keith suggested.

Lance sighed and laid back into his plush pillows. “You’re too good for me, Keith. I don’t- wait, don’t actually massage my feet I was only kidding.”

Keith backed away with a laugh. “Okay, but I was serious about that walk.”

He helped Lance out of bed and found a thick, blue robe for him to wear and slippers. Keith was still dressed in his trousers and vest, the tie long gone and the first few buttons popped open. The house was a little chilly, but he stuck to Lance’s warming side to leech the warmth from him. They wandered down the hall, Lance’s arm looped through his and leaned his weight into Keith. The house was eerily still, the maids and Coran retreated into who knows what corner. 

Keith was a little nervous to see Shiro again. This had to be the longest they’ve ever been apart, and now he’s started his fancy new clerk job and lived in his little flat. He assumed that he would move in with Shiro after this, but a part of him wasn’t quite ready to leave the lovely townhouse by the Thames. 

Lance paused by a wide window and looked out over the white-blanketed city. They were on the second floor, not quite able to see over the rooftops. 

“Do you miss the Winter Court?” Keith asked. 

“Sometimes, yes. My family is there.” Lance turned and placed a sweet kiss on Keith’s temple. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you the whole truth. You had to hear it from Lotor instead.”

“It’s fine, don’t worry about it,” Keith murmured. “Tell me more about the Court.”

“It’s your sister Court, the other half of the Unseelie,” Lance said with a sigh. “It’s also the worst of the two siblings, with a cruel king and despicable fae. I hated it, swore I was born in the wrong Court. It was only two centuries ago I met Hunk, and soon the others. Allura persuaded the Summer Court to let me in as their own, even as the lowest of their rank. They agreed, and I’ve never looked back.”

“That’s why Lotor wanted to marry you more, you were an actual Winter faerie,” Keith said. 

“Sadly, yes. I don’t believe Allura does anymore, not after what he did to you. Now she finally sees what a snake he is.”

“What has Allura meant to you?” Keith asked. He kept his gaze trained to the frozen window, Lance was a blurred shadow in the frosted panes next to him. 

Lance looked taken aback. He pulled away slightly and frowned down at Keith. “Now what are you implying here?”

Keith shrugged. “I’m having a hard time imagining why you suddenly love me. Have your affections been directed elsewhere before me? Or are you that good at hiding them? I could barely contain myself with how beautiful you are.”

“Hm. I woke up if that’s what you wanted to know.” Lance pouted, and Keith wanted to kiss those lips again. 

“And...?” Keith pushed.

Lance sighed. “And I realized my affections were misplaced and realized they should have been directed at you from the start. Allura held my heart, but as I grew to know you, I realized how wrong I had been, how foolish I was to believe I would ever have the chance with a duchess. She’s a wild fantasy I could never even hope to attain, and I was the blundering idiot who thought she might look at me with hearts in her eyes as I did with her. She sees me as a brother, and when you disappeared Cupid struck me down with it’s sharpest arrow. It left a hole that only you could heal, and I was awakened to realize what I needed, what I truly yearned for, was gone. You may not be a duchess, but you’re a king who reigns over my heart and I will gladly serve you as the court jester if it meant you would call me yours. As you might have noticed, I was a bit depressed after you disappeared like that.”

“You almost  _ died,  _ Lance!” Keith exclaimed. He whipped around and pulled Lance to him by his robe. “Because you realized you loved me?!”

“And I would do it again. I can’t help myself, I’m a little bit of a drama queen, O great king.” A sly smile etched across Lance’s lips, but his glimmering eyes usually so full of that mischievous charm were worn down, softened with a rosy, pink hue as if Cupid himself painted his face. 

Keith found himself drawn to Lance, to the little freckles that danced on his cheeks, stars that Keith wanted to try and count out and read like a storybook. Lance’s eyes drooped, his lips parted. Keith drew closer.

A throat cleared behind them. They sprang apart and turned to find none other than Shiro standing before them. He was in a nice suit, not a speck of dirt in sight, and a wool cloak draped over his arm. The lapels were sharp, his hair cleanly cut, and he had a right arm that was tucked into the pocket of his trousers. 

“Shiro!” Keith tore himself away from his newfound love and into his brother’s  _ arms.  _

“It’s good to see you’re okay, Keith,” Shiro said. He pulled Keith into the tightest, warmest hug he’s felt in over thirteen years, a hug that swallowed him from both sides and drew him tight against Shiro’s warm body. He sighed into his arms, the right one feeling distinguishably harder than the left. 

They pulled apart and Keith gave Shiro a solid once-over, taking in the pressed lapels and the fluffy hair that was damp with snow. He had the shadow of a beard growing on his strong chin, and a rosy flush from the cold on his cheeks. 

“You look like a man who makes money now,” Keith said with a wry grin. 

“I do make money, more than any of us had ever seen before.” Shiro gave Keith a cheeky grin and looked over Keith’s shoulder to Lance. “To celebrate my new job and Keith and Lance’s return, and obvious new status as lovers, I would like to host a dinner party this coming Saturday. I have a maid of my own I have teaching me to cook proper meals with proper food, and I would like to show you all what you have done for us.”

“We would be honored to join you.” Lance nodded.“Shall we join Coran for some proper breakfast?”

Keith ate in the kitchen with Shiro while Lance went to talk to Coran. He might have slipped the very dry bit of pound cake into Shiro’s prosthetic with a sneaky _shh_ and a wink full of promise. They planned out the dinner party, and Keith opted to move in with Shiro for the time being. He packed his meager belongings that afternoon and was at Shiro’s by tea time, where they had their own tea set with little white roses on them and a matching teapot. He had a room next to Shiro’s not nearly as lavish as the townhouse, but much nicer than anything he has ever owned. 

The only bummer was that he was used to sleeping with Shiro in the room. In the townhouse, it was worse, harder to fall asleep at night without Shiro’s deep, even breaths only a couple feet away from him. In the flat, it was much easier to remember that Shiro is behind the wall in his own bed. 

Saturday came fairly quickly. Dinner was a panicked mess trying to set up eight table settings in their tiny dining room with the help of their maid, Mary. She was kind, with small hands that were nimble with whatever she did. Keith had popped a silvery button in his coat and she was quick to sew it back in place, good as new. She didn’t live with them, which was unusual, but instead had her own little flat not far from their own. 

Their guests arrived at seven o’clock exactly. The food was just about ready and they took care of hanging their coats and hats in the hall rack and squeezed into their sitting room. It wasn’t nearly as ornate as their townhouse parlor, but it had the dark wood furniture and a matching center table with a bouquet of red roses as decor. 

Lance, Allura, Coran, Hunk, and Pidge were sitting daintily as Keith entertained them with conversation, something he never thought he would have to do in his life. Just sitting here with a crowd of richly dressed folk in his own sitting room as they waited for their meal with hot tea and scones caused a warmth to brew in his chest. It was barely a month ago he was barely scraping by with money from shoveling snow, freezing every night and starving every day. 

He doesn’t think he could survive back on the streets again after being shown what a warm meal and proper clothes felt like. Shiro saw to make sure they had enough money from his job as a clerk to set up savings in a just in case scenario. 

One more guest was due to arrive at the request of Shiro. Keith was glad that his dear friend, who he has not been able to see ever since they lost their home last month, would be arriving shortly after he got off work and cleaned himself up. 

“He is a close friend of Shiro’s,” Keith explained when Lance inquired why they were waiting so long to eat, a little rudely might he add. “He’s busy with his job, but will arrive soon, I promise. You’ll love him.”

Pidge sat cooly away from them, jet lined her collar and veil pushed back to see her soft face. With a start, Keith realized he has never actually seen it before, not hidden behind the thick veil, nor in a single painting on the walls of the townhouse. Well, all the paintings featured Allura and her father, a couple with Coran. Lance wasn’t even on the walls. 

She had a child-like face with round, amber eyes and an upturned nose that made her impish in a charming way. Her sandy hair curled around her cheeks where a spray of freckles dotted her pale skin. The spectacles perched on her nose was rimmed with gold and felt too large for her small face. She was a miserable sight, drained in black and had ghosts in her eyes. She looked barely fourteen, but who knows with the faeries. 

When they had entered, she had given Keith a curt “good evening” and claimed the corner of the couch, body angled away from the conversation. She gave short responses, but Keith could hear the cackle of the whip behind her sharp words. Even though he’s barely interacted with her, he felt an odd sense of pride seeing her opening up.

They kept the chatter idle, not delving in too deep with all their guests not present yet. The doorbell rang just before eight and Shiro bustled out of the kitchen and beelined straight for the door before Keith could even get up. Lance shot Keith a knowing look and a smirk, mouthing “Are they like us?” Keith nodded.

They could hear Holt and Shiro conversing in the hall in low voices. Shiro let out a boisterous laugh and Holt said something over his laugh, only to make Shiro laugh harder.  A moment later they walking into the living room together, Holt windblown with flushed cheeks and snow powdered in his damp hair, a grin the size of the sun on his face. He stopped at the entrance of the living room and gave the guests a brief bow.

“Good evening! I’m Matthew Holt, and it’s a pleasure to meet you!” Matt grinned excitedly with bright eyes. Keith swore if he was a dog his tail would be wagging. “I would like to thank you all for taking care of Shiro and Keith, they’re dear friends of mine and I am disappointed in myself I could not take them in during their time of need, but you stepped in and gave them a new start. For that, I am extremely grateful.”

No one spoke. No one rose to greet him or moved to make pleasantries. Keith looked back and noticed the stony faces, blank and pale as if they’d just seen a ghost.

“Matthew?” Pidge rose to her feet, the black veil draped down her back and over the chair seat. 

“That is my name, yes,” Holt said with a nod.

“ _ Matthew!” _ Pidge flew across the room and threw herself into his arms with a sob. “Matthew, Matthew, Matthew! We thought you were dead! Where have you  _ been?” _

The others rose as well, shock painted on their faces. Keith looked to Lance hoping for an explanation, but his eyes were glued to the scene.

“Uh, at work?” Holt shifted awkwardly in her arms. 

“For two  _ years?!”  _ Pidge’s voice reached a record volume, a pitch Keith swore the tea set rattled.

“Matthew,” Allura interjected. “Do you have any recollection of what happened?”

Holt froze. “Oh! No, I don’t.” He winced.

“Do you remember us, Matthew?” Coran asked, a frown etched on his face.

“I don’t mean to be rude, but I truly don’t. Would you mind introducing yourselves for me?”

The room turned cold, and Keith doubted it was Lotor’s ice magick this time. The life was drained from everyone and they shifted awkwardly in their spots. It was only Pidge who sprang into action.

“I am Katherine Holt, your younger sister who you nicknamed Pidge so many years ago. You left for a reconnaissance mission for Queen Titania with a few other faes over two years ago and never returned. Now you waltz into our friends living room with a scar on your face and your hair overgrown and introduced yourself as if you were a stranger to us.”

Holt gulped. “That. . .  seems likely? I’m not sure.”

Shiro clapped his hand on Holt’s back. “He doesn’t remember anything except the last two years, where he’s been with me for half of that. He has a steady job as a coachman and goes to church with us every Sunday. If you’re saying that he was a faerie this whole time, what would have happened to him to make him lose his mind like this?”

Pidge reached up and traced the healed over scar with a tender touch. “Something bad.”

Mary chose that exact moment to come around the corner from the kitchen to announce, “Dinner is ready!”

Hunk, the sweet soul he is, snapped out first and clapped his big hands loudly and herded everyone toward the kitchen. “Everyone in! Don’t let Miss Mary’s delicious food go to waste!”

They quietly followed her through the kitchen into the small dining area, a spread of chicken, pumpkin soup, fresh bread, and rich wine. No one dared to say a word as they dug into dinner, the silence so tense Keith was sure the butter knife would not even knick it.

“So.” Holt was the one to break it. “I’m a faerie, at least that’s what I could gather if I was working for Titania.”

“It’s strange you never knew,” Coran contemplated, stroking his mustache with a faraway look. “There are many things fae can and can’t do, and they’re not things a human could accidentally avoid all their life.” He shot a look at Keith. He swallowed in guilt, having not told anyone but his brother, Lance, and Coran of his newfound fae status. “You must have bonked your head hard if you thought you were human.”

Holt had barely touched his meal, only peeled the skin from his chicken and tore off chunks to nibble on. He was pale in the face and eyes trained elsewhere, anywhere but them. “I remember waking up in a faerie ring, the wound on my cheek fresh and I had no memory except my name is Matthew Holt and I had a family somewhere. I got a job to earn money, to try and get home to wherever my family was.”

Shiro sat to Holt’s left and to the other side of Keith, his arm shifted under the table in the barest movement toward Holt. Keith spotted Shiro grip his knee and smoothed a thumb over the crease of the pants. He nudged Lance to his left and pointed out the hand. It took Lance a second to snap out of whatever trance the fae had thrown themselves into when Holt walked back into their lives, mostly unscathed. His eyes drifted over to where Keith was pointing and quirked a brow.

“You were sent to scout the borders of the Winter Court, where there was news of King Zarkon’s troops moving,” Allura spoke up. “You volunteered yourself for the mission, you and two other faeries of the Spring Court. The last word was a message sent with a sprite to inform the Seelie Court Zarkon’s whereabouts. No message came after that, and the group that was sent in after you came back empty handed.” She shifted in her seat, her eyes flashed a dangerous, icy blue that reminiscences of Lance’s cold eyes from the other morning, but more dangerous. She drew herself to her full height, the dark curls spilled from her twist atop her head shined in the dining room lighting and seemed to flash for a heartbeat. “You and your group were most likely found and punished for snooping. As for the other two faeries, we do not have a clue of where they may be to shed light on the situation.”

Holt dipped his head in a nod. “I’m still. . . processing all of this. May I sleep on this tonight? And we may discuss this at an earlier hour?” He was still unnatural pale as if he was about to be sick. 

“Of course, my boy,” Coran nodded. “Shiro and Keith know where to find us, and they may lead you to us.”

They finished dinner in relative silence. Shiro’s hand did not leave Holt’s knee. Keith was surprised with how well Holt was taking in all this, although he might still have some sense left in him not to panic at the idea of being a faerie as Keith did. Supposed gaps and bridges were being inked into his brain right now with the new burst of information, a webbing of truth to mend the cracked foundations.

Tea after was nice, the chatter picked up and it was a little less tense than when they sat around the table talking.  Mary went home, and Keith served their guests the dessert and final round of brandy before the fae decided it was time to head out. 

“Would it be. . . deviant of me to ask if I could stay the night with you?” Lance murmured into Keith’s ear as the others were putting on their cloaks. Hunk shot Lance a glare, the fastenings on his cloak fumbled in his fingers when he heard what Lance whispered to Keith.

“You two are barely courting, it’s too soon to share a bed,” Hunk stated. The other’s stopped and turned to the couple.

“You are  _ courting!”  _ Allura hollered. “And why, my sweet Lasyndre, are you trying to persuade Keith into devious activities before marriage?”

“This is my private business, I don’t need to go flaunting my private business around,” Lance sniffed and wrapped an around Keith’s shoulders.

“I know  _ exactly  _ what you want to do and the answer is no,” Hunk said. 

“How does Hunk know and I don’t?” Allura huffed hands on her hips.

“I told Hunk because he is my best friend and would have found out anyway from snooping in my journal,” Lance pointed out.

“I can’t help it, you have a really good diary. It reads like a novel.”

_ “Journal,  _ Hunk.”

Hunk and Allura were fussing Lance, but it was Pidge that saddled up beside Keith, who had flushed a deep red over the trio’s awful conversation. 

“You seemed like trouble when you were first dragged onto our porch,” Pidge spoke softly, only for Keith to hear over the chaos of Allura, Hunk, and Lance. “But you’ve done a lot for us, yet it might seem like very little to you.” She reached over and squeezed his arm. Her veil was pushed back around her shoulders, eyes bright like pools of honey trapped in the sun. She really did look just like Holt, now that he has a good look at her face. Same eyes and hair color, same upturned, impish nose. The freckles on her face were stark against her pallor, faded from the winter skies and heavy veils. 

She had thanked him, in her roundabout, faerie way. How was he supposed to respond to that? “I didn’t do anything except roll onto your porch.”

Pidge smirked and pinched his elbow. 

The group was hustled out by Coran, insisting they’ve overstayed their welcome. 

“You are welcome here anytime you wish,” Shiro said steadily. He let his gaze travel over each of them, meeting their eyes to ensure the message got across. “Our doors are open to each and every one of you, anytime you please.”

Keith knew this was Shiro’s own brand of aggressive niceness. They bid their final farewells, Lance lingering to place the sweetest kiss on Keith’s cheek when everyone’s back was turned. He swore he felt steam emanate from his ears.

They kept up with weekly dinners, well into the end of February and watched the month bleed into March, where the snow fell less and the days grew steadily warmer as spring approached. Days passed where Shiro came home tired, but happy. Keith got work again at the shipyard and might have had a good word in with the nearby baker to think about giving him a job there. It was early hours, but it beat working in the dreary weather any longer. 

It was the following dinner where Holt (now Matthew to everyone) was reintroduced to his family, held at the townhouse, when Keith was taken aback by the sight of Pidge bounding down the stairs in an olive green dress and a familiar golden hairpin with shining leaves and adorned with white pearls and glittering diamonds. Pearls dripped from her ears and a flush held high on her bespectacled cheeks. Matthew came down a little slower from the staircase, a nice suit and a cravat of a rich blue. He smiled at Keith and winked at Shiro. He ended up staying with them, Matthew that is. In the little townhouse by the banks of the Thames. He would visit the Court with Pidge and Allura on the regular, came back a little dazed but otherwise alright. They were figuring out how to regain his memories through the use of magick healing on those trips. 

The peace couldn’t last forever.

There was a notice during one of their dinners in early March. A maid came in with a scroll sealed with gold wax. Allura angled herself away from the table and unraveled the ivory parchment to read the looped, golden ink. Keith caught a few words, his reading and writing have improved even more over the past month, yet most of it looked like loops and curls- much like Coran’s swirly writing. 

Allura’s face turned sour, eyes narrowed as she read the bottom of the parchment and the exaggerated signature. 

“What’s wrong, Allura?” Coran shifted in his seat, leaning a little closer to her. 

“Keith,” Allura spoke slowly. Keith swallowed his mouthful of mead and looked up, albeit a little nervously. “Is there something you may have forgotten to mention?”

“No, I told you everything that happened today.” He suddenly felt a cold sweat break out across his brow. He had a bad feeling about that parchment. Lance reached over and squeezed his knee. 

“Then may I ask who is Krolia?”

His blood froze. Lance sucked in a sharp breath. Coran rose to his feet, eyes darting between Keith and Allura. The other’s had frozen and turned toward the exchange. Matthew had a fork full of green beans halfway to his mouth.

Ah. Keith realized. He might have forgotten to tell everyone about his, uh, heritage. 

“Countess of the Autumn Court, how in Titania’s name is she related to you?” She said voice hardened.

Keith gulped. Allura was emanating an intimidating aura that sent a shiver up Keith’s spine. “She’s my mother,” he finally said, softly, hesitantly. “My father, he was a human. I’m not- I’m sorry.” He bowed his head. 

The table shook when Allura slammed her fist into it, the cutlery jumped from the attack. “This makes you a Viscount, and property of the Unseelie Court.” She straightened up and cleared her throat. “By order of King Kolivan of the Autumn Court, your presence has been requested to a Court hearing to defend yourself and Countess Krolia, or so that-” she smiled. “Is what Romelle has reported. You need to get out of here before they send someone to retrieve you. Lotor is going to be at the hearing to defend against you.”

“What?” Keith asked stupidly.

“Lance, take your lover and get out of here before they send, Gods forbid  _ Puck  _ of all faeries after him.” Allura rose to her feet, rolling the stiff parchment paper back up. “Coran.” she turned to her uncle, her eyes ablaze. “Take Pidge, Matthew, and Hunk down to the Spring Court, they must not get involved.” Pidge and Hunk rose to protest but stopped when she continued. “It would only hinder Matthew’s healing. Take Shiro somewhere safe. Lance, Keith, go to Gatesherd. Coran and I will meet you there soon. We’re going to have a talk with Kolivan and Zarkon.”

“No.” Keith stood. Lance’s hand hovered by his side. “This is my family, my problem. I need to go back and get this all straightened out, not have you deal with my problems.”

“That is a negative, Mr. Kogane,” Coran said. “They want to execute you. Allura and I will diffuse the situation, work a little faerie magick.” As he said that, he wiggled his fingers in the air and sparks danced across the waving digits. “Not literally, only an expression.”

“Let’s get out of here, Keith,” Lance rose and grabbed Keith’s hand.

“I’m coming with you two,” Shiro stood and rounded the table to stand by Keith. “I am not losing you while I’m tucked away in my flat.”

“Or you can all come with me and no one will have to be apart from anyone.” A new voice broke into the fray from the dining room entrance.

“ _ Puck!”  _ Allura hissed. Her hair, Keith did a double take, was coiled up atop her head and was now was the color of freshly fallen snow. Twin pink marks glowed on her cheeks, points of petals that glimmered under her eyes. Her ears were long and sharp. Around the table the faeries were shifting, changing into their original selves. Pidge had spots of green erupt on her cheeks, a shimmer that encased her skin. Hunk’s ears were longer and droopier, his skin speckled with stones. Lance’s eyes seemed to glow, his hair moved under an imaginary current.

The new character, Puck, sent a shock to Keith’s system. A flash of that snowy night, where he groveled on his knees for shelter and traded the watch for Shiro’s life. Puck’s eyes were kaleidoscopes of color, skin smooth and nut brown, ears pointed and dripping in gold. He had wild, pale hair and even wilder eyes. He lounged against the doorway, something golden clenched in his hands. He dropped the pendant and let it swing freely from his long fingers. Lance took in a sharp breath.

A familiar, gold pocket watch swung freely in the air, the warm metal glinting in the dim light of the dining room. 

“Lotor wishes for an audience with you lot, especially you two.” Puck pointed a sharp finger at Keith and Lance. “The one he wishes to marry, and the one he wishes dead. If you don’t want to come, that’s alright. No skin off my back. There might be skin off yours.”

“Where did you get that?” Lance hissed. The only thing sharper than his ears and teeth, teeth like Lotor’s and Krolia’s, was the bite in his words. 

“A little fledgling gave it to me. Willingly, might I add,” Puck said. He spun the watch in the air, the after-image of it was a golden shield. 

“Give it back.”

“Why? It’s just a watch. A family heirloom, maybe, but a watch nonetheless.”

“It’s more than a family heirloom _ ,  _ you molded meat, Keith was simply borrowing it.”

“Hm,” Puck considered for a moment. “No. I’ll take you two instead. The rest may follow, I don’t care much for what you do.”

“May I entice you with a reward then?” Allura said. Her pupils were pink, Keith noted.

“A dutchess cannot compete with the amount a king can give me. Now, I am getting bored standing around. Chop, chop! The circle is only growing more wild as we idle about chatting.”

Lance and Hunk exchanged glances and nodded, then Lance leaned over to Keith and whispered, “Hold my arm as tight as you can and don’t let go.” Keith nodded and gripped his dinner jacket sleeve. Hunk nudged Pidge, and her glasses glinted wickedly. 

“How about a compromise?” Allura asserted. “We go on our own without an escort. I unfortunately don’t trust you very much.”

“And neither do I.” Puck nodded. He stopped twirling the watch and stepped further into the room. 

A  _ snap  _ from the fire echoed loud in the room and all chaos broke loose. Pidge and Hunk rushed him, their chairs toppling to the floor. Pidge’s hoop skirt did not hinder her movements. A flash of green and gold sparks left bouncing in the air from where they were not even seconds ago. Inhumanly fast, they were on Puck. He dodged out of the way with a graceful leap, a twirl, and a tip of an empty chair. Shiro, closest to him snagged at his jacket with his prosthetic arm but reeled him in to find the coat empty of its owner. Lance jerked back from his seat, his thumb bit between his pointed teeth as he dragged Keith away from the mess. Puck leaped and spun gracefully in the air as if possessed by a prima ballerina. The food was knocked to the ground and the chandelier swung dangerously from the ceiling. 

In a smart move, Shiro used the empty coat and covered Puck with it, blinding him momentarily. It was enough. Lance pulled a coin from his breast pocket and smeared his glimmering, red blood on the imprinted star. Shiro, the second before he was sucked away, reached for his hand. 

It touched, briefly, but not enough to grasp it. Keith and Lance whirled away from the destroyed dining room when the air was sucked away and his body was pulled in every direction. 

The portal only took a moment, but the moment seemed to last forever with the air being pulled from his body and his head felt like hands were pulling apart his brain. His joints ached in their sockets, his ligaments were pulled taut. 

Then it was over. They collapsed into cold snow, sucking in deep lungfuls of icy air. Lance climbed to his feet unsteadily, his knees shaking like a newborn deer. Keith watched him stand from his spot on the ground and brushed the snow from his dinner jacket, breath misted over. Keith shivered and pulled himself up, taking in his surroundings. A grand fountain of a lion, desolate and snowed over, stood in front of them, a fantastically large house beyond the elegant statue. Behind them, a line of trees broken by an iced over driveway. The snowflakes were large and came down thickly over their lightly clothed bodies. 

“We’re at the Castle of Lions, Gatesherd,” Lance breathed out. His fae features were gone, replaced by the smooth, tanned skin and rounded ears once more. He leaned down to help Keith stand. His body shook under its own weight.

“We should be safe, at least for a little bit, behind the borders, but tomorrow we must move to the Seelie Court. There we can gain the favor of Titania and Oberon.” Lance explained. They wobbled past the lion and up the drive to the wide staircase leading to the double doors. Lance unlocked the door with shaking fingers and shouldered it open with a huff. 

Coran was right, Keith thought as they stepped into the entryway, this was much larger than the townhouse. The ceiling was too high to see the details of the ornate top, the marble floors sleek, and the space was large enough to fit the townhouse’s dining room in it. The grand staircase was wide and carpeted in a rich red, a painting at the wall of the second floor depicted a man who resembled Allura down to the shimmering white hair and startling blue eyes. 

The air was stale. A fine layer of dust coated every surface. Moths have taken a liking to the carpeting and tapestries. Keith stifled a cough when he stepped onto the intricate rug and up rose a cloud of dust ingrained to its very fibers. 

“I do apologize for the state of this place. It’s been a couple decades since anyone has stayed here,” Lance said. “Come now, let’s get us washed up and into bed. In the morning we can worry about what will happen next.”

“How did you get us here?” Keith asked, following him up the staircase. Their footsteps were muffled in the large room by the thick carpeting. 

“Each of us has a coin with a faerie star for just in case scenarios.” Lance held up the gold coin, his blood tacky on the surface.   the second-floor landing it was near pitch dark. After a moment of fumbling Lance lit a candelabra and held it up. “My apologies, this house doesn’t have electricity yet. Fire only, here.”

The house was ominous in the dark, the gold flame doing little to ease the creepiness of it. The wind howled outside and rattled the windows, a moan that dredged through the wide open halls and echoed across the tapestries. The air was cold, nearly as cold as it is outside, and the long shadows on the wallpaper made Keith think Puck was going to jump out behind a marble bust at any second. 

Lance seemed to think the same line of thoughts as he looped an arm through Keith’s and pulled himself closer, eyes darting to the shifting shadows. They picked up the pace down the hall, up another staircase, and down a corridor where they stopped in front of an unassuming door. Lance pushed it open, the creak of it echoed in the large space, and stepped into a bedroom larger than Lance’s at the townhouse.

There was a blue theme here, too, except there was a sitting area in front of the fire and a bed that could hold a few people comfortably. The windows were taller, the carpet richer, and the wood was smoothed to a shiny finish that resembled the surface of a dark jewel more than a dead tree. Lance went about lighting various oil lamps and then finally the fireplace. Keith shivered next to him as the fire filled the space with its warming glow, the mysterious shadows thrown away from the light.

Fresh clothes, albeit a little old, were drawn from the wardrobe. They took turns changing behind the gold screen and curled up by the fire to steal its warmth. Keith’s toes were still cold, and his eyes watered from staring at the flames unblinkingly for so long. His hands gripped together tight in his lap, the space between them hot.

“Why did you let me take the watch if it was so important?” Keith asked suddenly.

Lance looked up from the book he had dug up ( _ Midsummer Night’s Dream,  _ was what the title read, something Keith proudly noted he could do now). He snapped the book shut and laid it gently on the arm of the chair. He sat across from Keith, the firelight muting the cool blue of his eyes to a piercing silver. 

“I thought we would meet again and I would, er, get it back.” Lance wouldn’t meet Keith’s eyes, instead, they were glued to the fire. “I forgot to get it back, honestly, despite it being of importance to me.”

“You could have said no.” Keith pointed out. “And ran away.”

“Um, well…” Lance hesitated. Keith wanted to imagine the warmth flooding his features. “I might have a link to it, being that it is forged with the gossamer of my baby fae wings, thus I am able to react to it like a magnet. Only when I occupy the same realm as it am I able to locate it…” he trailed off. He was most certainly flushed a rudy crimson. 

“You tracked me with it!?” Keith spluttered.

“I- yes, I did. But only because I found you quite handsome and wished to have a way to locate you once more and see your beautiful face.”

“You never spoke to me.”

“No, I didn't. I was waiting for you to make a move to speak to me first, and yet  you ended up running into me, literally, might I add.”

Keith smirked. “You didn’t have the courage to strike a conversation with me, huh?”

Lance frowned with an audible twitch to his brow. Bullseye. “No, I was being courteous and letting you approach  _ me.” _

“You were nervous to speak to a handsome man, like a wooing lady.” Keith’s lips curled upward, mirth laced his words. 

If it was possible to turn any redder, Lance did it. The heat traveled up to the tips of his ears and down into his collar. He refused to meet Keith’s eyes. “You are quite striking, who can blame me?”

It was Keith’s turn to flush. “Stop that.”

Lance rose from his seat and padded over to stand in front of Keith. He stretched out his hands, an offering. He was rumpled in the softest way, his hair stuck up and curled from the dried snow, his usually perfect hair gone with their escape, and his shirt askew on his shoulders. A flash of collar bones and the barest hint of the top of his chest left Keith’s throat dry. He gulped, licked his lips, and let his eyes trail down the long length of his arm to the open palm. He took the offering and rose to his feet with a firm tug from Lance. 

He wrapped his arms around Keith’s middle and pulled him close, propping his chin on his shoulder with a soft sigh. The wisps of it tickled the hair on his neck. Keith was stiff, unsure, his arms sat uselessly in the air. Lance sank into him further, his weight flushed against his ramrod posture. A kiss traced his neck, a flutter of soft skin on the sensitive column. Keith sucked in a gasp, his arms came down to hold Lance. His fingers splayed across the wide expanse, the lines where his faerie wings had been long ago, hidden under his glamour. Keith traced the edges, where he guessed they would be after examining his own body. 

Lance’s breath hitched. “ _ Keith _ .” Keith hummed an answer. “Is that yours?”

They pulled apart from their soft embrace. Lance was tilted to the side, trying to look around Keith to the armchair. “It grew from the chair.”

A red flower. With so many little petals. The crease of the armchair seat where Keith had sat had the flower bowing under the weight of its many petals. 

“That came from my bum.” Keith snickered. Lance snorted. 

“A chrysanthemum.” Lance pulled away completely and leaned down to traced the silky petals with a tentative finger. 

His mother, Keith realized. That’s why the flower is so familiar. The memory of her tracing a gilded locket with absolute adoration in her eyes flashed across his mind’s eye.

“I have a feeling I don’t need any more confirmation on how you feel for me.” Lance straightened up and turned back to Keith, the mirth from earlier gone from his eyes, the mischievous twinkle replaced with a spark of something unfamiliar, yet it made Keith want to melt into him. 

“What?” Keith was in a daze. The room was warm, steadily growing warmer. Lance was a magnetic pole that pulled him closer, made his stomach churn from the motion.

“A red chrysanthemum. A symbol of love and passion. It looks like fire, doesn’t it?”

Lance plucked the flower from the seat and slipped out the door with a murmur to wait for him as if he was unaware of the stifling heat that was permeating the room. While he was gone Keith unsteadily climbed up the overlarge bed and took a deep, shuddering breath. His heart throbbed a new beat; a loud, harsh rhythm that only sent Keith’s stomach around and around like a wheel. His skin prickled, hands itched to run along the smooth expanse of Lance’s back. A few moments later Lance returned with a crystal vase filled with water, the flower swimming in its center. He placed it on the nightstand and climbed up the bed and sat next to Keith, far too close for Keith’s palpitating heart.

They had only kissed twice more since the initial night they declared their love for one another, stolen pecks with so much warmth it made Keith’s head spin. Now he craved more than anything for the sweet press of Lance’s lips to his own, and to never leave his lips until he is out of breath. 

“That really does prove you are an Autumn faerie,” Lance said softly. His eyes were glued to the red flower, illuminated by the faint, golden light. The crystal details of the vase threw spotlights of light from the nearby candle. “A warmly toned flower that blooms primarily in the fall.”

“It’s my mother’s favorite,” Keith said. His eyes were stuck on Lance’s profile. 

Lance hummed. “That makes sense you would be linked to her like that. My sister adores forget-me-nots, thus I tend to leave a few behind.”

“She has a locket.” Keith stared down at his hands, rugged from years of work and turmoil, a sharp contrast to Lance’s silky smooth skin, drenched in sunlight and softer than any flower petal. “With the chrysanthemum on it. Inside is a picture of Shiro and me when we were little, and a picture of my father.” 

Lance stayed silent, but his hand drifted over to brush his smooth fingers across Keith’s calloused ones. 

He kept going. “I hated her, I still don’t truly forgive her yet. The circumstances wouldn’t let her see us, and she left because she loves us. But it’s been hard, for so many years, and she can’t stroll back into my life as if she didn’t have the solution to our problems this whole time.

“We bonded. Just a bit, had our moments. We got to know each other. Time is weird with her. She hasn’t comprehended how long she was gone, how much we hurt. She’s earnest to mend what she did, and I don’t want to be mad at her anymore, and yet…” Keith struggled to find the right words.

“It’s not enough to rebuild years of absence,” Lance finished. Keith nodded.

“Why can’t humans and fae be together? Is it prejudice, or is there a more biological reason behind it?” Keith asked. 

Lance traced a thumb over Keith’s rough knuckles. “Prejudice. The fae believes we are above humans, yet are driven to hide from them. We believe that humans would taint our magick. It’s a slippery slope to us fading away and being consumed by humans. Restrictions were put on us about a thousand years ago when we were free to frolic as we liked.” Lance sighed, his eyes glazed and staring back into a time that’s long since passed. “Biologically, it could potentially make us stronger. Think about it, the faerie rules don’t apply to you.”

“It makes me nauseous to lie,” Keith pointed out.

“I throw up if I even attempt to,” Lance said. 

“There’s no need to lie around me, is there?”

Lance pursed his lips, then smiled. “No, not at all.” He wrapped an arm around Keith’s waist and pulled him back to lay with him on the bed, atop the musty covers and stared up into the cobwebs draped over their heads. “Humans are flawed. They like wars, making themselves feel superior to their own kind. Segregation amongst cultural and ethical backgrounds, and even amongst your own race,” Lance mused.

“If you’re not rich, you’re dirt.” Keith murmured. 

“The fae are no better. We’re cheaters. Most like to make everyone else miserable for their pleasure. And yet.” Lance rolled over to face Keith, eyes inhumanly bright. Keith rolled to face him, didn’t stop him from brushing a tentative thumb across Keith’s cheek. “Combined? They make something perfect. As if all the flaws are canceled out, the gaps filled in to create you.”

“I’m far from perfect, Lance.” Keith frowned. “You barely even know me, you’re blinded by infatuation to see my flaws.” He moved to scoot away from his feather-light fingers, but Lance’s hand shot out to grasp his. His fingers were still icy cold.

“Maybe so, but I still love you, I love knowing that I get to learn more about you,” Lance said softly. His voice was heavy, a tone Keith couldn’t quite place his finger on it.

“You have a way with words, Mr. McClain.” Keith moved in closer, their noses a hair’s width apart. “And how do I know you’re not the perfect one here? My God, have you seen your face? Or heard your own laugh? I should be thanking you for giving me a second glance.”

“I should be thanking you for stealing my watch.”

Keith snorted out a laugh. Lance huffed and joined in, his giggles felt soft against his flushed cheeks. Their laughter died down and Keith found himself pulled toward him, or Lance was leaning into him. He doesn’t know, but their lips met tentatively.

All their kisses before were nothing compared to this. This was the deep end of the lake Keith had never braved to tread in before. A plunge of the warmest, summer waters that took his breath away. He was submerged in the soothing tides, felt his silky lips trace his own as the caress of the undercurrents swooped him away. He pulled Lance down on top of him, felt the water pressure increase all around his body and he never wanted to come up for are again if drowning felt this good. 

Hands moved over his heated skin, fingers chilled from the frigid air and electric-charged palms left a tingling trail across Keith’s shivering skin. Keith wanted to go deeper, to the bottom of the lake where only the dead sank to. He traced the seam of Lance’s lips with a prodding tongue, a question to let him dive. Without hesitation Lance opened up with a stuttered gasp, his hands finding Keith’s hips to grip like a lifeline. He sucked away Keith’s last breath and Keith let him.

Fumbling hands drew forgettable patterns on their blushing skin, lips roved into uncharted territories, fixing to memorize the shape of their throats, the curve of their jaw, the tips of their collarbones. Keith hasn’t felt this heated, this  _ alive  _ in his whole life. His senses were working overtime, driven mad with the tingling touches from Lance. 

He ended up with Lance straddling his hips, hands gripping the hard planes of his side with only their nightshirts stuck between them, a thin barrier that stopped Keith from feeling more of Lance, inhaling more of the summer lake water that threatened to take his dying breath. Keith flipped their positions and slotted between Lance’s legs, the hem of his long shirt sliding up his thighs to reveal more warm skin. It made his breath stutter seeing the long legs on display, intimately illuminated by the warmth from the fire and candles. 

Keith pulled back to admire Lance, a fresh gasp of air after being under the lake surface for so long, and let his fingers trace down his abdomen. The muscles flexed under his delicate touch, sensitive to the barely there touch. 

“What do you look like?” Lance whispered. His lips were swollen from their kisses, a rosy hue on his high cheeks gave Keith a swelling sense of pride knowing that he did that.

“I look like myself,” Keith said, an impish smirk quirked his lips.

“No.” Lance reached up and grasped Keith’s wandering hands, stopped at his hips. “It wasn’t there before, maybe because it was lifted while you were gone, but your glamour. What do you look like without the glamour? There’s a shimmer to your face, it hides you from me.”

Keith inhaled sharply. Once he had learned to raise a glamour, he kept it up. It wasn’t really a struggle to keep it up, more like a buzzing on his skin now that felt like a chilled, autumn wind that would surprise him when it blew through his not-quite thick enough coat. Like goosebumps on his skin. “Okay.” He finally said. “But only if you show me yours, too.” He’s only seen brief flashes, the glowing eyes, but never the whole thing. It was Lance’s true self, after all.

Lance nodded eagerly. “I promise.”

With a nod, Keith closed his eyes and let go. He felt the heavy drape drop from him, felt the fresh air brush against his skin with a soft sigh. Lance gasped and Keith slowly opened his eyes.

He didn’t feel different, but Lance’s eyes trailing over his features told him he was. 

“You’re beautiful.” Was all he said. His voice came out like a loving lullaby. A tentative hand reached up toward his face, hovering reluctantly over his cheek. Keith nuzzled into the cool palm. A soft thumb traced the corners of his eyes, where the red marks were imprinted, then traced across his temple to the point of his ear, and down to his jaw where the faded scarlet lines sprinkles of gold dusted his skin to the solid gold of his throat. “Your skin is like a spider’s web, just like the other faeries. But you don’t have nearly as many markings, perhaps due to your human side.”

“I have gold lines on my back.”

“As do I.”

“Show me,” Keith whispered, afraid to break the bubble they built to breathe underwater together.

Lance nodded and sighed, an unknown tension was released and he sagged into the bed. There was no shimmer, or flash of sparkling light, but Keith blinked and he was suddenly radiant. 

The ears were pointed, and his skin was somehow even silkier, but what was absolutely stunning were his eyes. They were brighter than any river, a blue that shimmered in the summer and refracted lights into onlookers eyes and blinded them. His pupils were slitted, much like a cat on the hunt, and he has dazzling flakes of pale blue with a stunning silver sheen tapered around his temples, most concentrated in the corners of his eyes and scattered outward up to his forehead and down his cheekbones. Circles of blue were tattooed into his throat and wrists, smooth and shiny as if worn down by a river current. Keith traces Lance’s delicate fingers with his own, taking in the sharp point of his nails and the pale blue webbing between the digits. It felt like the finest chiffon under his touch.

“You’re unreal,” Keith sighed.

“I am actually laying under you, how am I unreal?” Lance quirked a brow, a flash of sharp teeth behind a soft smile.

“I can’t believe someone as beautiful as you exist.”

For once, Lance was speechless. He blushed brilliantly and could find no retort on his usually sharp tongue.

To save him, Keith dove down for another kiss. It stole his breath away, feeling the exquisite smoothness of Lance’s skin against his own, the temperature dropped even more to a calming cold that reminisces the cold river currents that the sun couldn’t quite touch.

They kissed, and kissed, and kissed until Lance shivered from the chill of the room and tugged the covers over them. They exchanged more sleepy kissed, gentle pecks of lips on any skin they could reach, and hands pulling each other close. 

Keith and Lance drifted to sleep when they were finally too tired to speak, too tired to move away, too tired to finish one last kiss.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> stay tuned we have the climax and im dying to get this fic out before i rot away you feel. thanks for all the support comments and kudos it makes me so fucking happy my guys.  
> i have some art from the fics on my art blogs under the vau tags lol so check that shit out  
> main tumblr: canadiangothstalker  
> art tumblr: mirai-eats  
> twitter: mirai_eats

**Author's Note:**

> Kudos, comments, shares everything under the sun is greatly appreciated.  
> I'm probably gonna take a brief break from this before I finish the next part (which I'm already writing) to work on a couple other fics I have queued up so I'm not gonna be radio silent like last time. Expect a 20 min part, a langst, and an ML fic in the future.  
> *dabs*  
> main tumblr: canadiangothstalker  
> art tumblr: mirai-eats  
> twitter: mirai_eats


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